The Phantom of the Opera, Retold: Act II
by Kates
Summary: New scenes added, changes made The second act of the characters' very own retelling of this tale.
1. Masquerade!

Author's note:  I'm back, with this: the second act of my retelling – and aren't you all just _so_ happy?  (…okay…maybe not…)  Anyways, the main reason why I'm getting this up so soon is because I'm kinda of stuck at home right now convalescing after a dental procedure.  It is soooo irritating to not be able to chew anything other than really really soft ice cream.  Good thing or bad thing?  I'm not quite sure.  But I do know that I would like to be able to eat Christmas cookies about now, so…

Disclaimer:  I love them all very much, and I wish that they are mine, but alas, I have not become quite that rich or famous yet.  Perhaps one day I will strike up a friendship with Sir Andy when I become a big time fashion designer and make all the costumes for his Phantom movie (regardless of who winds up playing Erik…), or perhaps I will become Ms. Kay's ardent pupil in the art of writing, but as for now…

Chapter Twelve – 

Masquerade!

From the viewpoint of an unnamed guest at the Opéra Populaire… 

Messieurs Gilles André and Robert Firmin had never been at an end of fanciful ideas, and this, their latest, was not to be an exception.  By 'this', of course, I mean the New Year's masquerade ball, to which I was attending as a guest.  Well, truth to tell, I clearly _wasn't invited, for not one person would find the name '__Le Fantôme de l'Opéra' on the guest list.  But I was there, nevertheless, and I was watching, hidden high atop the grand staircase that fronted the room where the masquerade was to be held, as preparations were made for that night.  _

André and Firmin had not yet arrived, but they would make their entrance in a matter of minutes, for it was almost time for the masquerade to begin, and of course, just to give them the fright of their lives, I was planning on attending the festivities.  

No one had heard of the Phantom of the Opera during the last six months after he had been named the murderer of a stagehand in the Opéra Populaire's employ, who had been hung from the flies during a performance – so of course, my entrance tonight would certainly cause quite a stir.

_I had no idea.    _

The room was silent, save the occasional murmur or sound of footsteps from the servants and caterers who were placing the finishing touches on its finery.  

And then, all at once, a sea of sound, colour, scent, and warmth swept into the room as the guests poured in through the doors.  I glimpsed André and Firmin, both of whom were costumed in skull masks and dramatic black silk opera capes.  

_Now where__ did they get that idea? I wondered, smiling grimly.  _

Carlotta and Piangi were there as well.  Carlotta looked like the over-dressed wanton that she was, with Piangi trailing behind her, trying vainly to keep up.  At length, Mme. Giry and Meg arrived, and I made a mental note to myself to make an attempt to speak with the ballet mistress later that evening.  There were things that I _had_ to tell her.  Meg, I noticed, looked quite pretty in her brightly coloured, embroidered robes.  She was dressed as an Imperial Chinese goddess.  Nadir was nowhere in sight: a fact for which I was almost glad.  

And then – then I saw someone who almost made me faint.

_Christine._

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Christine resumes the narrative… 

As soon as I stepped inside the gigantic, cathedral-like front room of the Opéra Populaire, which had been transformed into a ballroom for the masquerade festivities, and saw its brightly lit, ornately decorated finery, I knew that absolutely nothing had changed there in the last six months.  

Even though almost everything in my life had changed now. 

I was allowed no time to think on this, however, for Raoul had whisked my cloak from my shoulders, drawn my arm through his, and was leading me towards the dance floor.  When we reached it, I greeted those I knew with smiles and a wave, while Mme. Giry, Meg, and the rest of my fellow _petite rats received kisses and embraces.  Raoul stayed by my side for a few moments and then he stepped off, into the crowd, to speak with André and Firmin.  I watched him, feeling yet another pang of unhappiness.  _

So would be our marriage, if he had his way in the end: like this, with him keeping a careful watch over me, never truly caring about my truest emotions, my opinions and feelings, and his going about with his rich, powerful friends.  What kind of life would that be?  

_But, I reflected, as the girls of the ballet chorus swirled around me, gushing about how handsome Raoul was and how lucky I was to look forward to having such a wonderful husband, __That is, only__ if he succeeds in dragging me to the altar.  _

_Which he will find bloody hard__ anyway.  _

Suddenly, I realized that Raoul was standing by me again.  

"Christine, I want to announce our engagement tonight," he said. "André and Firmin already know – I just told them.  _Mon amour, they say it's the best thing that could happen to one of the chorus girls, and now I want __everyone to know."_

"To know what?" I asked, numbly, my mind reverting to another world.  He seemed to become confused at my words.

"That – that we are _engaged_, of course!" he replied, flustered, and seeing that I was not hearing him, he took me, gently, by the shoulders and led me off of the dance floor and into the shadows beyond it, under the structure of pillars that lined the room.  

Once we were there, the music playing softly, like a dream-like, music-box waltz, in the background as the colours and glitter of the dancers whirled by us, he stared into my eyes with his penetrating blue gaze, trying to read my face.  

"Christine," he said, tenderly, "What's wrong, my sweet?  You seem as if you've seen a ghost."

I shook my head, staring blankly at the space ahead of us.  

_Not yet. _

I cleared myself out of my daze and gazed up at him.  

"Please, Raoul," I begged, "Please.  Don't tell everyone tonight – don't make the announcement.  Can't we just keep it a secret?  I'd rather not have everyone know…"

"Everyone know that what?  That you're making the _best choice of your life by leaving this place and marrying me?  That you're no longer going to be known as a chorus girl, an orphan, but the Vicomtesse de Chagny?  Christine, I thought that this was what you __wanted!" he said, plainly hurt._

"Don't be upset, Raoul – please." I pleaded.  

"Why _shouldn't I be upset, Christine?" he asked, running a restless hand through his thick, golden-blond hair, mussing it. "You're acting as if this is some sort of secret, as if our being together is something that should be hidden.  What reason do you have – why __shouldn't we tell them?" _

I put my hand on his cheek, the jewels in the rings that I wore – all part of my costume, which was that of a Renaissance-style angel, complete with a voluminous, bell-shaped satin skirt, silvery embroidery along the neckline, wide, flowing, transparent sleeves and a pair of delicate wings – sparkling in the light from the new chandelier as it glowed like a giant orb over our heads.  Futilely pleading with him, I said, helplessly, "Please, let's not fight – not here, not now; please, Raoul—"

"Christine, you're free!" he interrupted.  

I went on, trying to make him understand me, "Just wait—"

"Oh for Heaven's sake, Christine!" he exploded, then his hands came around my face, lifting it and making me look at him.  Our faces were inches apart: so close that I could see every emotion that flashed through his ice blue eyes, every detail of his handsome face.  

"I don't understand you – this is an _engagement, not a __crime!" _

Suddenly, he lowered his voice and spoke to me softly.  

"Christine, what is it that you're so _afraid of?" _

I backed away, shaking my head.  

"Let's not argue…"  

He took a step towards me, as if he wanted to say something that would change my mind, but then he stopped and remained where he was.

"Christine, all I can hope is that, _someday, I'll understand all of this."_

I smiled at him, faintly.

"You will…in time."

He seemed about to say more and I was waiting for him to speak when I suddenly felt myself abruptly grabbed from behind and whirled around.  One of the revelers had spotted me and obviously thought that I wasn't having enough fun, and that he should be the one to re-introduce me to the party.  

_Oh well, I thought, giving in and letting him lead me onto the dance floor, __That discussion was over anyway.  _

In a moment, however, I realized that going to dance was the direct _opposite of what I knew as a good idea.  As soon as my partner – who was dressed in a bizarre outfit that was masculine on one side, with a black dress jacket and pants, a scarlet-satin-lined opera cape, and a top hat, and feminine on the other, with a layered, gaudy-skirt, a padded torso, high-heels, and a veiled hat – had moved me into the mass of waltzing couples, I knew that something was wrong.  _

His costume was frighteningly reminiscent of the Phantom's opera wear, complete with a white silk mask.  

I tried to pull away, frightened, but he laughed and whirled me around faster.  Finally, I succeeded in separating myself from him and was making an attempt to get away when yet another dancer chose to play the same game with me.  He, too, was dressed like the Phantom.  But even as I tore myself away, yet another masquerading prankster claimed me as his partner.  

The torment went on and on as the music played, throbbing in my brain and causing my mind to reel, on the verge of snapping, as my partners spun me with increasing force, passing me from man to man.  Then Raoul appeared and dragged me back to the sidelines of the dance floor.  Once we were there, I looked up at him, trembling, as he stared at me, a dark expression in his eyes.  The dance continued to its climax, the music rising until it made the very foundations of the room vibrate.  

And then—

Suddenly, there was a sound like that of an explosion!

It came from near the top of the grand staircase and made the air quake as cries, shouts, and screams of terror instantly filled the air and the musicians abruptly desisted in their playing.  The dancers on the floor froze.  Beginning to tremble violently, I looked to the doors that had been built at the direct crown of the staircase.  

The sound of the explosion had been caused by those doors, which had been thrown open, and the two griffin-like stone figures that stood on either side of them, placed there for the masquerade, had seemed to have come alive.  From their fang-filled mouths poured thick, red smoke the colour of blood, a heavy fragrance of incense rising into the air.  It flooded into the room, flowing like the waters that God had cursed through the staff of his Hebrew messenger.  

A deadly silence came over the room and then everyone was slowly, numbly turning the stare, in horror, at the top of the steps.  I stiffened and felt Raoul's hand close about my wrist, for…    

_The Phantom of the Opera had come to the party._

Silence  

_What now? _

More silence.  

_It's all over.  _

_He has us.  We're doomed.  _

_All of us.  _

Still more silence.  

The Phantom stood where he was for a moment, so unmoving and silent that it was almost hard to tell whether it was truly he or just a gigantic, black-cloaked statue.  The horror of the moment was choking.  I could hear my own heartbeat: heavy and slow.  Then, the cloaked head of the specter rose.  A shaft of light fell across the face beneath—

_The face of a skeleton.  _

I stared, unable to turn away, as Raoul moved in front of me.  

Without warning, the Phantom spoke – his vibrant, compelling voice of most beautiful tenor harsh and cold.  "Why so silent, good messieurs?" he asked.  He began his descent down the steps of the grand staircase.  Those who stood in his way scattered.  

I couldn't move. 

"Did you think that I had left you for good?"

There was no reply from anyone in the room.

"Have you missed me, good messieurs?" 

He paused, then assumed a wry tone. "Really – you _haven't?  That surprises me __very much indeed…I was hoping that you may have had a good enough reason for locking me up here – that you wouldn't have thought that you could keep me __contained in this place.  Very interesting…"_

And his voice trailed off into a dangerous sibilance.

"Very well, my silent friends – I have written _you an opera!" _

With that, he pulled an enormous, bound manuscript from beneath his plain, black cloak and gestured with a fluidly graceful movement to it.

"Here I bring the finished score – 'Don Juan Triumphant'!" 

He threw the manuscript to André, who stood a little way down the staircase.  The manager caught it deftly, in spite of the force with which it had been thrown and his obvious, paralyzing shock and terror, as the Phantom continued.

"I advise you to comply – my instructions shouldn't be too hard to follow…even for fools like _you."  _

Then, his mood shifted to something infinitely darker: something terrifyingly deadly, as he added a cryptic, chilling warning.

"Remember – _there are worse things than a shattered chandelier."_

He had paused and was staring at André and Firmin, as they gaped at him in open terror – then, the hooded head of the Opera Ghost, my Angel, my Erik, seemed to cease all movement for a moment, as if he sensed my gaze on him, and he froze.  

Suddenly, he turned around, whirling on the people who stood behind him, and our eyes met.  I could almost see the flash of ominous yellow that went through the eye-spaces of the skeleton mask that he wore as he caught sight of me.  

Then, he beckoned to me.

_You will come to me – now__._

I began to walk towards him.

Come to me, Angel! 

I was mesmerized: unable to resist him, unwilling to resist, to flee.  I had almost reached him – he was moving towards me.  We would meet at the bottom of the steps, in the center of the frozen crowd, as the chandelier's scintillating light danced around us.  

And then I was standing in front of him: so close that we could touch.  

I felt his gaze as it burned through his hood.  It was pulled low over his face, so that only a slash of the skeletal, bleached whiteness of his mask showed through.  I stared up at him, my eyes wide, even though I felt as if I was dreaming.  

We stood there, looking at each other, for one endless moment.  

Then, his hand came up – so gracefully, so quickly, that I didn't even realize that he had moved – and rested on the skin at my neck, where I wore my elaborate diamond engagement ring from Raoul on a golden chain.  His gloved fingers caressed my skin, melding around the ring as it sparkled, like a futile ray of light that was about to be snuffed out by the increasing darkness around it.  He spoke, and his voice was barely above a whisper…but an incredibly, inescapably dangerous whisper. 

A whisper that filled my soul _with fear.  _

"Your chains are still mine…" he breathed.

I began to shake my head, as his voice rose into a harsh cry of a soul that had been driven into madness by broken hopes, by the dashing to bits of a life that had been so promising at one enchanted point of time.  

"You will sing for _me!" _

Raoul ran towards me, but I was only barely aware of anything at all as I stared into Erik's eyes, seeing them blaze a raging, ever-living, vengeful, Hadean yellow through the blackness of his hood, and felt the wrench of the chain against my neck as the Phantom ripped it from my throat.  

_No!_

At the last possible second, as Raoul lunged at him, Erik swept his cloak about himself and there was a great loud noise, like a gunshot, and the thick, red smoke filled the air again, separating me from Erik and obscuring him from sight.  

Choking on the deep, hazy cloud, my head throbbing as I tried not to fall to the floor: my balance rocked by the force of the explosion-like occurrence, I strained to see my Angel, for one more moment—  

But all I saw was a last glimpse of his eyes – flashing at me – and then I knew.

_He was gone._

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Erik resumes the narrative…

As soon as I had shot down through the trapdoor that was hidden in the floor of the ballroom and landed in the quiet, still darkness beneath the party, I stood – frozen – for a moment, unable to think, move, or even breathe.  

Then, slowly, I looked to my hand.  

No.  I didn't want to look at the necklace: to know for sure and without a doubt that Christine Daae would never belong to me again.  

I opened my hand.

A spare shaft of light from the lantern that I had placed in the trapdoor area hit the necklace that lay, unmoving, in my palm, and instantly, the diamonds in the ring that was attached to the chain sparkled.  The sobs that I had been holding back for so long exploded, with full force, out of me.  

Finally, I raised my head and stared, blankly, not quite knowing what to do, into the blackness around me.  My first inclination was to pull myself together long enough to find my way back to the boat, go back to the lair, and let my sadness resume itself in the silent corridors of my underground home, but then I realized that, should I do so, I could easily succumb to any rash idea that came over me.  Suicide being one such idea.  I stood there for another long moment, unsteady and wondering where I should go, if the lair wasn't an option.  And then I had a new thought.

_The masquerade._

I had to go back.

Ten minutes later, I had reached the lair and changed my clothing in even less time, all the while thinking grim, dark thoughts.  I took off my skeleton mask, replaced it with another one – this mask was white and it covered all of my face, except for my lips and chin – and left the lair to its silence.  

The lake was dark and inky as the sea during a storm, its mist strangely absent, and the candles that floated upon it were unlit and almost luminescent in the shadows, as I made my way back up towards the surface of the labyrinth.  I emerged from the back-ways of the Opéra Populaire by the trapdoor that was placed, center-stage, in the auditorium.  Wondering if what I was about to do could _possibly be right, I choked back my strangling fear of being surrounded by so many people, making a firm attempt to convince myself that no one, not even Christine, would recognize me.  _

No one even gave me a second glance as I walked into the ballroom.  

I stood still for a moment, intensely watching at the sea of people who stood around me, glittering and whirling in their glorious costumes.  They all looked strangely uneasy.  I glanced about again, trying to see if I would spot Antoinette.  Blast it, where was the woman?  She was here earlier and I need to speak with her now—

And then I saw her.

_Christine._

That brat of a boy, Raoul, was with her.  As I looked on, all noise and movement in the room was slowly ebbing back into being.  Everyone in general was talking among themselves about the strange appearance of the Phantom of the Opera.  Only a short distance away from me, Raoul came to Christine's side, putting his hands on her arms and trying to calm her.

"Christine, you're still shaking," he said.

She waved him off, vacantly.  

"It's all right, Raoul…I'm fine…it's all right." I heard her say, her voice strangely monotone: the look in her beautiful blue eyes abstracted.  I wanted to kill myself for hurting her so cruelly.  

"Please…" Christine continued, "don't worry for me."

He wouldn't have any of her words.

"You're _not all right, Christine.  That monster has frightened you – I could __kill him for his cruelty!  Who gave him the right to ruin your life?"_

I glowered at him, my mental spines of jealousy and glaring, smoldering anger instantly going up.  Christine placed my hand over his mouth, quickly, to silence him and then she looked around at the crowd, her eyes roving over its mass with uneasiness.  I knew exactly why, and my guilt instantly returned.  

"Raoul, don't say that!  He's so much stronger than _anyone you know – he'll take you for your word and there will be __no way for you to escape from his wrath if you provoke him to it!" _

I knew as well as she did that that was the truth.  

_She didn't want for me to see myself as threatened.  _

Raoul and I were far more dangerous to each other than anything else in the world and she didn't want either of us to die because of that.  But if Raoul took her away from me, if she _truly left me and never came back…then I didn't know __what would keep me from dying, eventually, if not immediately. _

" 'Provoke' him?" Raoul asked, incredulous in his anger. "So help me, Christine, I'll do _more than __provoke him!  He's trying to control you – why are you protecting him?  What earthly reason do you have to keep him from his fate?"_

"Because he could kill you a _thousand times more easily than __you could ever kill __him, Raoul." she said, and the expression in her eyes was dark. "You would be looking about for him and he would already be there.  And you wouldn't be able to escape."_

"Then why do you defend him, Christine?" Raoul asked, earnest.

She shook her head, wordlessly. 

"Please, Raoul." she said then, once more. "Don't." 

They stared at each other, as I watched them, waiting for their next words, for a moment, as the ball resumed – uneasily, as if everyone was just waiting for something terrible to befall them.  Then Raoul took a step towards her, seeming as if he was about to say something.  Suddenly, a voice came from behind them, as the speaker stepped into the space just in front of me, and they both turned towards it.  

I stepped behind a pillar, out of sight, and listened.           

"Monsieur le Vicomte?"

Raoul visibly relaxed on seeing that M. Gilles André stood behind him; obviously, he had been expecting to see someone else.  _How original, M. le Vicomte – someone like me__? Le Fantôme? I thought, malignantly, coldly mocking him.  I saw Christine flush, in her beautiful, velvety way, as she went to stand behind Raoul, who took her hand and nodded to André. _

"How may I help you, M. André?" 

André looked uncomfortable underneath his mask as he replied, his voice low and nervous, "It…it's about the opera, M. _le Vicomte.  The Phantom's libretto, this 'Don Juan Triumphant'.  Firmin wishes to speak with us in the office right away…" _

He hesitated and I had to listen carefully to hear his next words. 

"It's the Phantom's casting."

Something in his eyes carried a message to Raoul and he suddenly stiffened; then, he turned reluctantly towards Christine, saying, "I shall return shortly." 

Christine smiled, weakly, seeming wan and lost amidst the crowd.

"I shall be waiting for you…dearest," she replied, simply.

_No. _

Raoul turned and went off with André into the crowd.  When he was gone, I finally let myself breathe, exhaling one great sigh of relief, and then I watched as Christine ran her tiny, slender hands over her face, slowly and methodically, and closed her eyes, becoming silent and still.

_Good, I thought.  Much as I wanted to remain where I was, I had other duties to attend to at present.  First off, I needed to speak with Mme. Giry.  I crossed the room, skirting the dance floor, and finally found my way to her side.  She turned her head as soon as I had spoken to her, in a low voice._

"May I have this dance, Madame?" I asked.

She instantly recognized me, as she always did: no matter what guise I chose to make my appearance to her in, and her dark eyes instantly took on a dark, worried, and almost angry look.  She replied calmly, however.

"As you wish, monsieur."

I bowed and took her by the hand, edging us into the mass of dancers as the orchestra struck up a grand, throbbing waltz.  

"Erik!" she hissed at me, not bothering to hide her irritation at me, "You should _not be here!" _

I made it appear as if she had just made some comment about the new chandelier – which _was rather spectacular, even __I had to admit – and glanced at it, before replying, putting on a smile that masked my real emotions._

"And _you are ruining my cover!" I murmured to her, coolly. _

We waltzed another two steps before I went on. 

"Now, I am Antoine Lavallière and you've met me before, some years ago, and now you're going to catch me up on some of our Parisian friends' recent activities, since I've been away to Sicily." 

My expressive look convinced her to obey without question. 

"I cannot refuse." 

I glanced at Christine, who was standing at the edge of the dance floor, as beautiful as a goddess as she watched the waltz.  Something in her eyes, something that was written in her features, made me catch my breath.

"I'm a wanted man now, Antoinette." I said, keeping my voice to a low murmur.  I hoped that no one thought that I was flirting with my partner as I continued, "The local gendarme forces have been led to believe that Joseph Buquet is one of my victims, based on the evidence of how he died.  What they _don't know is that he died by accident – after he had stumbled into part of my house…part of it that should not be frequented by anyone but me." _

She gave me a questioning look – as if she really didn't believe me.

"The torture chamber—"

"I didn't kill him, I swear to you." I said, with some exasperation. "Really, Antoinette, you'd think that you could trust my word – my sense of honour – after all of this time that we've known each other.  Killing, in my own self-defense, I am most certainly capable of; killing because I am ordered to, I have also proven myself able to do.  But murder?  I had no reason – I didn't kill him." I repeated. "_Trust me."_

She didn't inquire further on that, but she did ask one other question, frowning. 

"But how did the managers come to assume that you were the killer?  No one knows of how you might go about…" She moved uncomfortably. "Putting an _end_ to someone."

 "I think I can answer that." I said, regarding her darkly from behind my mask. "You obviously don't listen to the stories that your little ballet girls tell in the dressing rooms and salons between practices." I said. "They know.  And after that?  Well, it's really quite simple."

I was silent and waited for her reaction.  She shrugged.

"You make it seem so, Erik."  

I turned my head away and gazed towards Christine, as if the sight of her was the only thing that could save me.  She looked so beautiful, as she stared into the distance at something that no one else could ever see: her pristine, angelic profile turned so that the light hit it beautifully, the crystal facets of her earrings sparkling, and the long, fine, almost swan-like bones of her neck arching in perfect, curved grace.

"Tell me, Mme. Giry…" I said, hesitantly. "Is she…are they…engaged?"

She seemed to read my face: her lit-charcoal and ink eyes flickered over my face for a moment as we danced. 

"So it would seem, Erik," she replied, softly.  My pain must have been more evident than I thought, so gentle were her words. "But I cannot be sure.  She wears his ring, that we all know, but it would be foolhardy to attempt to say for certain.  He may say that she loves him…but I think that she knows in her heart what is truth and what is a lie.  I do not know." 

She gave me a bit of a weak smile as the waltz ended and we stood amidst the applauding crowd.  I barely caught her next words over the noise.

"She keeps _you in her heart."_

With that, she walked away, gliding into the crowd like the shadow she was; our dance ended.  I stood there, unable to move for a moment – unable to believe.

Could it be true?  Christine…_me?  She thought of __me…could it be possible that she dreamed of me, as I did her?  That she woke up in the midst of a vision where we were together, free of our ties to policy and convention and fear…we two?  That she desired me as much as I desired her?  That she loved—_

I couldn't make myself complete that thought.

The guests at the masquerade were starting up yet another dance: this one was a colourful, sweeping allemande – and I left the dance floor, resuming my position beneath the pillars, and I stared at Christine, wondering if she could possibly be any more beautiful.  I could easily see how both Raoul and I were glad to tear at each other's throats to get to her.  We both loved her, and she would, sometime in the future, sing again for one of us.  But, the question was…_which one would it be?             
"Christine, __cherie!"_

Meg Giry ran up to Christine, her bright blond curls bouncing over her shoulders and her green eyes lit with relief.  "Oh, my darling little Christine _cherie," she said, as she ran into Christine's arms and embraced her, "I was so afraid!  I thought that that horrid Phantom would hurt you for sure!  Are you all right?"_

_You spoiled brat, I thought, venomously but with an edge of dark amusement.  I had always felt a strange fondness for the girl; I suppose it was because her mother had always showed me such kindness, and because, in the end of all things, Meg Giry wasn't such a bad little thing after all.  Goodness knows I had indulged in this fondness enough to win her a permanent place as the leader of her dancing row!  But her companion…for her, I felt something entirely different – something _more_._

_Christine. _

"I'm fine, Meg dear." Christine replied.

Meg's eyes widened with concern as she put her small hand on Christine's face, with child-like devotion. "Oh Christine dearest, you are pale!" she said. "You look as if you've been through much these past months – are you sure that you are well?"

Christine nodded again, trying to smile.

"_Oui, __ma cherie…I'm all right…don't worry about me.  There's nothing to be concerned of; please…" She suddenly brightened, changing the mood. "Now tell me, Meg Giry, where in Paris did you get that gown?  You look as if you've just paid a visit to the Emperor of China – it's absolutely divine!"_

Smiling with girlish pride of her costume, Meg stood back and twirled a little, the gold coins on her skirts clinking, with a music of their own, against each other as the bright colours of saffron, roseate, and russet swirled about her ankles: the golden bracelets around them glittering brightly. 

"Yes – isn't it lovely?" she asked. "Mother helped me to make it out of some old costumes in the dressing room…and look what came out of it!" 

I looked on, not even realizing that I was smiling faintly at the exchange, as Christine said, "Well, now I know where my competition is – Meg Giry, you _cannot keep growing so lovely.  What will the upper-class ladies say when they see you?"_

"They'll say that they saw the fabulous costume of the beautiful Christine Daae and that they are having their seamstresses copy the design!" 

Meg put out a hand and brushed the transparent, shimmering material of the wings of Christine's angel costume. 

"Good heavens, Christine, you look like a princess!"

Christine smiled.

"Thank you—"

Just then, the sound of footsteps, rustling fabric, and giddy laughter came towards us – Christine and Meg, in the open, and me, from behind my shielding pillar – from the dancing crowd.  Both Meg and Christine turned to see several of the _petite rats coming directly towards them.  _

I saw annoyance flash through Christine's eyes.  

"Oh, Christine Daae – just the _belle we were looking for!" chirped Blanchette, the leader of the group and the most irritating of the ballet girls.  She wore a gaudy costume with a low-cut neckline and décolleté, and her makeup and jewelry was heavy. "Heavens, Christine, when we saw that scene with you and __le Fantôme…" Blanchette continued, clapping her hand to her brow dramatically, as the other girls in her group giggled and twittered in both fear and excitement. "It was absolutely so incredibly _romantic _– you have the perfect scandal, __cherie: two men, fighting like cocks over you.  I wish that __I could have two handsome studs vying for __my hand!"_

I glared at her in icy rage, wishing that she would just go away.

"I'm sure that you do, Blanchette." Christine replied, coldly.  She obviously had the same amount of regard for the coquettish, over-dressed Blanchette that I did. "However, _I_ do not consider being the object of gossip and 'scandal', as you put it, a worthwhile use of my time." 

Blanchette shot Christine a nasty look.  Without a doubt, she took the point of the comment very well.  "Well," she resumed, after flouncing her shoulder haughtily in Christine's general direction, "You certainly _are the luckiest girl in Paris, __ma cherie – the Vicomte is so handsome and suave, and he's to-die-for-wealthy!" The other girls chimed in, saying things like, "Yes, so handsome!" "Oh, his blue eyes are just heavenly!" "I wish that he would look at me like he does you!" and "I want to be you!" _

Then Sylvie, a tittering, nervous girl who was predisposed to quite regular fainting fits, added, "And I heard that the Vicomte's older brother, the Comte Philippe, is going to give you two a villa and winery in Tuscany for your wedding gift!  Isn't that just so _romantic_?"

Christine nodded.  "Yes…it is." she said, in a hollow tone of voice.     

I had had enough.  She wasn't going to spend her evening in agony.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Author's note:  What will Erik do to?  How will he rescue his beloved Angel?  Read on to see…


	2. The Dance, the Mirror, the Choice

Author's note:  When the last chapter ended, Erik had just sworn that Christine would not spend the rest of her evening in agony, plagued by cruel and irritating ballet girls and forced into unpleasant discussions with other people.  Now let us see how he sweeps in to the rescue – Erik, the Hero!

Disclaimer:  They are not mine; I only write for entertainment, and because I've got nothing better to do this morning and afternoon until tonight at exactly 11:59 pm, when I will be attending the premier of a truly fantastic movie…

Chapter Thirteen:

The Dance, the Mirror, the Choice

Christine resumes the narrative…

"May I interrupt?"

Blanchette instantly whirled around to face the person who had interrupted her prattle.  Her eyes lit on seeing the masked, fantastically costumed man who stood behind us, seeming as if he was waiting for one of us to speak.  

He was dressed in a Byronic, wonderful attire of red, white, and gold, with a sword hanging at his side, a long, billowing cloak, a high collar with a flowing, lacy cravat, studded with a large black gem of some sort, and a pair of knee-length, black boots.  His hair – from what we could see of it – was thick, slicked back on his head, and a warm golden-brown, with hints of blond in it.  He was very handsome, notwithstanding the white mask that covered almost all of his face, save his mouth and chin, which were left uncovered.

I read 'fresh meat' in Blanchette's eyes and silently willed the man to run.  _Run, I told him with my eyes.  __Run for your life__.  _

Blanchette fluttered her eyelashes at him and said, vivaciously, "_Oui, monsieur – ask us for __any favor." _

He glanced down at her, from his extremely tall height, and seemed to brush her off like an annoying little gnat.  "A favor?" he asked, lightly. "Very well, then, mademoiselle – do one for you mother."

Then he paused a beat before adding the final verbal deathblow.  

"Go home and stay there until you've learned to be a _lady."_

Blanchette's cheeks flamed crimson and she shot him a look that would terrify most people.  He stood firm, however, and gestured off to the crowd.

"Your way?"

The girls trooped off, with nervous giggles and whispering, and Meg, after giving me a look that asked my permission to leave, slowly followed them.  Flushed and suddenly full of sweet relief at knowing that my irritating persecutors were gone at last, I turned to the man and smiled at him thankfully.

"Monsieur, I do believe that you have been the _first_ person this evening to successfully carry out the feat of stopping her gossip." I said, as he took my hand and kissed it.  His lips brushed against the skin of my wrist lightly, but I felt the heat behind them.  Something in his touch thrilled and disconcerted me, all at the same time.  He straightened up then, towering above me at his statuesque height, and our gazes met.  Again, I felt the feeling of heat and ice rushing through my veins.

"If I performed any service, mademoiselle," he replied, in a vibrant, wonderful voice that seemed all-too-familiar, "I am glad to have obliged you.  However, I must confess that I interrupted your friend to ask if you would allow me the honour of a dance, not to simply drive her and her lackeys away…although I can tell that you didn't all-together appreciate their company." 

He smiled at me, and the expression was gentle, sweet, and almost hesitant.  Such a smile merited no return but a smile of my own.  His gentle demeanor encouraged me, and I curtsied to him, gazing into his eyes.  They seemed so…so _familiar. _

"I would like nothing better, monsieur." I told him.  

So he offered me his arm and, together, we stepped onto the dance floor.  The orchestra was resting for the moment and all of the guests had stepped off of the floor to mingle at the sides of the room: talking, laughing, and generally making merry among themselves.  My partner gestured gracefully for me to wait for him and I nodded, silently, wrapped up in my own thoughts.  He crossed to the orchestra and spoke to the conductor for a moment.  I watched his back as he conferred with the maestro, wondering how someone could resemble the Phantom of the Opera so impossibly much.  The only thing that was different between this man and Erik was…I didn't know what the difference was.  

Is_ there a difference?_

I stiffened upon thinking of that and it was only when my mysterious, masked partner returned to my side that I remembered that I was still alive.  

"Shall we, mademoiselle?"

With a start, I shuddered out of my reverie and looked at him bemusedly for a second.  He was there, standing by me: as tall, aloof, and handsome as ever in his spectacular costume – _Vlad the Impaler, perhaps? I wondered, reflecting on the vampire-like appearance of the crimson and gold attire that he wore – and his eyes were regarding me questioningly, with a bit of concern mingled in their depths._

"Is there something wrong?"

I shook my head, forcing myself to forget all that I had just been thinking of and to make an attempt at enjoying the rest of my evening.  "No, monsieur." I said, smiling brightly, trying to reflect my words with my expression. "Nothing is wrong." 

He grinned, the brilliance of the expression nearly blinding me, as he took my hand and carefully – as if I was a porcelain doll that he had no wish to break – brought me into his arms, whirling us into a dance position.  As the orchestra began to tune up in the background, he whispered to me: his chin nearly touching my shoulder as his smoldering eyes bored into my neck, his breath welling against my skin and his hand lifting mine like the burning, sculpted grasp of a marble statue.  I closed my eyes, savoring his touch, as he breathed into my hair, "I hope you like the dance of the Spaniards, mademoiselle."

And then the music began.

I stepped away from him, so that a distance of about five feet separated us, as a single guitar strummed a few fleeting, enticing notes.  I could almost hear the swirling, dust-filled wind of a deserted, sunset-filled Spanish square as silence filled the gap left by the guitar's absence as my partner and I faced each other, staring deeply into each other's eyes.  Then, a steady, pulsating beat of drums ebbed into the air as the guitars and strings joined in, and I began to dance, even though I had never known that I could dance like this.  I twirled across the floor, my feet barely touching the marbled space, and then I felt the strength of my partner's arms around my waist as he caught me and spun me around.  I stepped away, turning my back on him, and flicked my arms into the air.

So went the dance.

As we spun, dipped, and moved in and out of each other's grasp, performing wild, passionate moves that could only accompany the most beautiful of Spanish dances, I realized that I had never felt like this when I had danced with Raoul.  I felt as if I was a bird: free and passionate to fly on the winds of summertime above the fields of the world.  Something wild and unrestrained filled me, lifting me up on great, sweeping wings as I let it go – all of my worry, fear, and pain from the past months.  

And my partner didn't stop me.  He didn't bring me back to reality by slackening in his movements, by letting me return to reality.  

No, _he was the one who had set me free into this passionate freedom.  _

As the music slowed in a momentary interlude, he brought me gently into his embrace; and, just as our gaze met, his eyes seemed to blaze with burning, overpowering emotion.  Then he twirled me around, faster than ever before, and the dance was instantly ten thousand times more intense.  We whirled at a speed that seemed it was quicker than light itself, becoming more and more involved in our dance as the music strained to keep up with our spinning arms and whisking footsteps.  

Then, with one last, overwhelming, beautiful breath of music, it was all over and we remained in each other's arms, breathing hard and staring at each other…wondering: _desiring to know if we had __really just done that, as our suddenly spell-bound audience applauded us with a heart-pounding ovation.  He was still holding me – his right arm supporting my waist as his left held my hand stretched out to its full length – when I heard a voice come from the crowd somewhere behind him.  _

It was a voice that was filled with utter fury.

_Raoul!_

I must have mouthed the word, for my partner gently eased_ his slender hands off of me, stepping away with a fluidly graceful bow.  His beautiful eyes bored into mine as he looked up at me and said, "Until we next meet, Christine Daae."_

_My name – he knew my name!  _

I was too shocked to react, as he stepped into the crowd and instantly melted into its mass.  I tried to call after him, for I had to _find him, to see him again.  He wasn't just an anonymous guest at the masquerade – and it seemed as if he knew that as well as I did.  That he knew that __I would know._

"Christine!"

Oh no – Raoul.

I turned around, fully expecting to be slapped across the face in the next blinding second, but he hadn't quite reached me yet, so I was able to compose myself and make an attempt at settling the wild, exhilarated beating of my heart.  

_What kind of a bride are you anyway, Christine Daae? I asked myself, without a hint of remorse in my soul.__ You've just danced a completely out-of-line dance with a man that you don't even know while your fiancé was out of the room, as if you had planned it all along – as if you were a flirt!  _

Nonchalant, I looked down, brushing my costume back into order as Raoul, breathless, finally fought his way through the crowd to my side as I stood in the center of the dance floor. And then I thought a completely rebellious thought.

_I don't care._

"What on earth do you think you're doing, Christine Daae?" Raoul asked, his voice low and angry as he took my arm and pulled me off of the dance floor.  I returned his look of jealous ire with a cool gaze that must have maddened him, for he certainly didn't calm down. "Do you realize that you've just made a complete _wanton of yourself?  Standing out there and dancing with a man that you don't even know, as if you do the same sort of thing all the time – what were you thinking?" He stood back and glared at me again, fulminating in his fury._

"That's it, Raoul," I replied, calmly. "I wasn't thinking. _Excusez-moi." _

Without giving him another second to come up with some sort of reply, I turned my back on him and, gathering my voluminous, cream-coloured satin skirts into both of my hands, I swept off the floor, through the crowd, which obligingly parted for me, and made my way towards the door.  

I was _so_ angry.  

Why couldn't he just see, for once and for all, that I didn't love him, that I no longer wished to have anything to do with him?  He seemed to think that my care was his sole responsibility – that, if I weren't under his constant watch, I would somehow err in my path!  He didn't have a single ounce of trust for me in his being—

Then, suddenly, _he_ was there.

My partner.  The man who had set me free and given me happiness for five minutes of that evening…five blissful, wonder-filled minutes.  Only one other person had done that ever…  

_The Angel.  _

I froze in my place, unable to move, forgetting that Raoul was still out there, somewhere in the crowd.  All I could think of was the man whom I had spotted across the room, at the other set of doors that led out of the ballroom.  He already had his hand on the doorknob and in a second, as I watched, he pushed the door open and ducked out, his long, full cloak sweeping and billowing out behind him.  I caught a glimpse of the side of his masked face as he vanished into the darkness beyond the door and then I knew exactly whom I had danced with that evening.

Erik.

Why hadn't he revealed himself to me?  Didn't he know how much the last months had agonized me – or did he even care?  He knew about my engagement to Raoul, but wouldn't he somehow realize that the attachment was only a farce?  That the marriage would never take place?  That I would die before I gave him up to live as Raoul's bride?  The man was a genius.  His mind excelled that of any person I had ever known before in my life or would ever know – couldn't he somehow _know_ that love was something that _could __never happen between Raoul and I?_

Desperate to know the answers to all of those questions and knowing that the only person who could make a reply to them would, in all likeliness, disappear from my sight and leave my life again before I could so much as move, I dashed to the door, threw my weight against it, and ran from the ballroom.  Once I had reached the shadow-cloaked, black darkness of the Opéra Populaire's halls, I paused, trying to get my bearings.  Erik and I had only had one meeting place in the entire time that we had known each other and he would go there, to that one place, if he desired to see me.  I could only find him there. 

My dressing room.

With a frantic sense of fear, I tore down the empty halls, away from the music, light, colour, and laughter of the ballroom.  I felt as if I was trying to find my way through a labyrinth, searching in its never-ending, twisting, dead-end walls for someone whom I could never hope to find.  

I had to try – I wouldn't lose him!  

After what seemed an eternity of running and fruitless searching, I finally began to recognize my surroundings.  Before I had even stopped my dash down the hall, I was fumbling at the doorknob, which took another precious few moments, and then I had fallen gracelessly into the room, breathless and pale from my run.  Quiet, still darkness greeted me: a familiar scent of roses and lavender curling around me like gentle, warm fingers.  I stepped into the room, crossing the thresh-hold hesitantly, my slippers whispering on the floorboards.  I scanned the room in futile hopefulness…

But of course – he wasn't there.  

I should have known that Erik, the master of secrets, darkness, and trapdoors, would _never_ openly reveal himself to me unless he truly desired to.  It just wasn't something that he did.  I had known that when I had first met him in the wings of the theatre on that far-off, dream-like day.  

And I knew it even now.  

I turned towards the door, intending to leave the room to its silence until rehearsals began again, but then something in it caught my attention.  The mirror that took up almost all of the space on the empty all gleamed, inviting my gaze.  Feeling that I was somehow experiencing a warped, strange sort of dream, I let my footsteps trail over to it, until I stood directly in front of the cold, give-nothing glass.  Hesitantly, I put out a hand and let my fingertips run over the gold-engraved frame of the mirror, as I remembered everything about it from years before.

It was a special mirror – _a mystery mirror._

Suddenly, I recalled myself as a small, spare, flat-chested eleven-year-old with big, hungry eyes and a wealth of hair that was too massy and thick to manage with any amount of ease as I had stood there, in front of that mirror, gazing at my reflection.  

One of the older girls in the ballet – had it been Gisèle, who had gone off to some sea-side province and married a young fisherman, or Denise, who had gone on to become a great ballet dancer in the English theatre? –  had been telling me about it.  It had been a rainy, gray day: the perfect day for telling stories and exploring the mysterious, inviting depths of the Opéra Populaire, which was something that we did when Mme. Giry hadn't been keeping our concentration on our practicing.  

I remembered standing in front of the mirror, staring at it as the older girl – I believe it _was Gisèle, now that I think about it – motioned to it, with a mock-serious, playful expression sparkling in her friendly, gray-blue, older-sister eyes.  _

"You see this mirror, Christine Daae?" she had asked. "This, my dear – _this is a magic mirror.  Sometimes, La Carlotta says, she feels that she is being watched as she sings in her room before the premier of an opera.  And then there is always __no one there."_

"It _is a magic mirror." _

My own words echoed back to me as I watched the scene, detached from my own consciousness, reliving the past.  It always had been a magical-looking mirror: huge, black and gold, and icy, as if it was hiding secrets behind its depths and knew it. I remembered how, when Carlotta had given the room up and it had been put to use as my sewing room, Erik had given me singing lessons from behind it, and how I had always expected to catch a glimpse of him, concealed somewhere in the room.  

But now…_now the mirror seemed as if it was broken, even though it was still perfectly intact.  Like a mirror, my dreams had been shattered over these last months…the dreams that I had hoped…what __had I dreamed of, anyway?  Some foolish aspiration of a fantasy that Erik would give up his life as the Angel of Music and come to be with me?  Some vain, frivolous hope that he could ever love __me – he, a man who was, above all, the master of mystery: the prince of obscurities?  _

I wanted to collapse onto the cold, hard floor and put my face in my hands, letting my tears fall through my fingers and dampen the satin of my skirts, but I held myself upright, unwilling to succumb to my…misery.  But even then, I couldn't stop the tear that slid slowly, reluctantly, like a dying soul, down my cheek and dropped onto the graciously curved, embroidered neckline of my gown.  Vexed, I hastened to wipe it away, but the tears just kept coming.    

Suddenly overwhelmed to the point where I couldn't take it anymore, I sank to my knees and surrendered to my tears.  Through my quiet, restrained sobs, I whispered the five words that I had held back all those long months.

"I _need_ you, Erik."

My grief turned into a frenzy of both anger and fear then.  I didn't want to live without Erik.  If he wouldn't come to me, I would simply go to find him.  No one could tell me that I didn't need him, because I did, and nothing would ever change that.  

"I don't _care_ anymore, do you hear me?" I muttered to the mirror as I slid my hands to its frame, searching for the device that would trigger its door mechanisms. "I just don't care!  Let them all say I'm possessed and that we're both dark and evil – _I don't care_!" 

I punctuated each of those last three words viciously, pulling on the mirror's frame, and then something clicked somewhere deep inside the mirror, and I stepped back, left breathless, trembling, and weak from my passionate outburst, and watched as the mirror slid open with silent, fluid grace.  I stared into the darkness beyond it for another long moment, wondering if I could find my way back to the lair – without Erik to guide me.  Wondering if he would take me back, after all that had happened.

It was simply a chance that I would have to take.

Once I was inside the passageway, I watched the mirror glide closed again behind me, and then the candles in the lanterns on the walls lit themselves, their amber light flickering wanly against the dark walls.  I took one down and, holding it up, ahead of myself, began to walk slowly and carefully down the stone corridor, keeping my free hand on the wall beside me.  

I don't know how long I had walked, or how many turns I took, or even how I had managed to recall the path that we had first taken to the lair together: Erik and me, but I suddenly found myself at the head of a flight of steps, which led down onto a stone dock, to which was moored the black gondola boat…

At which stood the Phantom of the Opera, who was waiting for me, and watching my approach with both darkness and light in his beautiful, mismatched eyes.

"_Angel_…" 

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *


	3. Let Me Stay

Author's note:  A really rather short chapter now, reader mine – however, it does have a somewhat important discussion in it, and then the further chapters after it will feature some more new scenes, particularly one with a certain Persian friend of our favorite masked man, and a trip to the Bois with our two protagonists…

Disclaimer:  The first time I listened to the Phantom of the Opera (the original cast edition), I was sobbing at the end because Christine left the poor Phantom and went off with Raoul, who didn't really even strike me as all that wonderful.  So now I've gone and written a version of my own, based on several versions of Phantom, and with it, I hope to prove that I am nothing more than a devoted phan.  Phan, not owner of anything Phantom.  There.

Chapter Fourteen –

Let Me Stay

Christine's narrative…

The next morning, I awoke to find myself in my room in the Phantom's lair.  I started upon seeing this, recalling how we had returned to the lair and gone our separate ways, with nary a word to one another, to our own rooms, and wondering what was going on above, since my presence would have surely been missed by now.  

_Raoul._

Suddenly, I heard the rustle of a paper, like a page in a book being turned, and then the soft clearing of a male throat.  I sat up all the way, twisting around so that I could see the other side of the room from whence the sound had come.  

My eyes met with a truly interesting and truly unique sight.  

The Phantom of the Opera, looking very absorbed in the book that he appeared to be reading, was sitting in one of the two chairs beside the fireplace: his legs nonchalantly draped over the arm of the chair that he was seated in, elbows propped up against its back.  He wore a sleek, form-fitting black satin vest, a full-cut, silky poet's shirt that melded with fluid grace to his muscular and yet slender body, black breeches, and a pair of shiny black boots.  He spoke then, and I was startled, for he never once looked at me, although it occurred to me that my awakening hadn't been the quietest that I had ever performed.

"You needn't be concerned about your precious Vicomte's reaction to your disappearance, _mon enfant_," he told me, his mismatched eyes continuing to scan the pages of his book with frightening intensity.  I shivered a bit, watching him. "One of his many lackeys appeared at the ball last night and informed him that he was called away on business to England.  He departed on this venture only because he hadn't any chance to refuse – family orders, I suppose."

He was silent then, and I sensed coldness in his air.  He still hadn't forgiven me for being with Raoul: whether there was love, or no love, in the companionship at all.  Perhaps it was something else.  I didn't know.

I got out of the bed, crossing the room to sink down onto the floor in front of him, carefully placing my hand on his as he let the book drop to rest in his lap.  I gazed up at him, wanting for him to look at me; it seemed he knew my intention, for he stared steadfastly into the fire for a moment or two, his blue and green eyes glittering strangely.  Finally, he turned his face towards me, and I saw that his mask, like most of his garb that day, was black – with a sparkling silver teardrop painted beneath its eye.  We looked into one another's eyes for a long, incredibly tense moment, staring deep into each other.  Then, he spoke, and his voice was cold and even, like ice.

"Why did you come back?" he asked, pointedly.

I felt my eyes widen a bit.  Didn't he _know_?

"You know why."

But he only reacted to this by letting a contemptuous, almost sarcastic expression come onto his proud, beautiful face and asking, "Do I?" 

He set the book on the table that had been placed beside the chair and stood, towering above me in all of his dark elegance.  I gazed up at him, feeling small and unwanted, confronted by the master of the universe of magic and shadows.

"Let's suppose I _don't_, Christine.  Enlighten me."

I stood then as well, feeling anger flood into my veins.  If he was so angry with me, then let him _show_ it instead of mocking me like this!  If he couldn't see why I had come back, then perhaps it was going to take more than mere soft words to win him over.

"Erik, _stop being such an idiot_!" I spat at him, incensed. "This is _ridiculous_ – didn't you realize that the only reason why I left you that night was because both Raoul dragged me away?  After that, I couldn't get back in to the opera house because the doors were locked – I was shut out, and there was nothing I could do to find my way back in!  I don't know this place like you, but believe me, if I _could_ have found my way to you, I _would_ have!  I don't want to stay out there with Raoul and learn of his world.  _That_, my Angel, is why I came back.  I want to be with _you_!"

He stared at me for a moment, causing me to step back.  As soon as my initial tirade had been spent, I knew that his anger – and his anger alone – was the one thing that I should be afraid of.  But if he was going to be angry about the truth…

_I couldn't help that._

"But…"

He seemed to lose strength then, his shoulders bowing and his hands dropping limply to his sides as his head lowered.  "But…"

Then he looked up at me again, and I saw that something – something almost like hope – was flickering in his eyes.

"Then…you're not engaged to him of your own free will?"

"No." I replied. "Raoul asked me to marry him.  You remember that.  He thinks that, because I was in his home and therefore 'within his control', he has the right to say that we're engaged.  I have practically no choice in the matter.  He will say what he wants to say about my attachment to him, and his to me, but…"

I stepped close to him and took both of his hands in mine, then reached up with one hand and tipped his chin back, making him look straight into my eyes again.  

"Erik, I won't marry him.  I told you that before."

"I know…" His voice was barely a trembling whisper.  I steeled myself against the floods of overwhelming emotions that threatened to take me captive.  I couldn't see him cry – not for me.  Not Erik, the Angel of Music.  _Not now_.

"Erik." I said again.

He stared at me.

"Erik, teach me again.  Let me stay with you…at least until Raoul comes back."

He was breaking apart inside – I could see it in his eyes, and he wasn't hiding it from me.  Here, now, we needed each other the most, in the wake of our loneliness and pain, after all that had happened, after being apart for so long.  After everything.

"Christine, I've missed you so…"

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *


	4. Questions for which you have no answer

Author's note:  Yay, Nadir's back!  Oh, but he's got some rather unpleasant questions for Erik – perhaps this will not be such an amiable meeting after all.  Read to see…

Disclaimer:  I don't own anything Phantom, although if I could, I would.  Again, as in Act I, there are bits and pieces of Kay's Phantom in here, which are denoted by ' marks and italics.  Enjoy!

Chapter Fifteen – 

Questions for which you have no answer

Erik's point of view: two weeks after the masquerade, at the lake beneath the opera house…

_'Nadir was waiting for me on the far bank, and long before I disembarked I could see his face was very grim.  He waited only for me to set foot on the bank beside him before launching into his attack._

_"Christine Daae!" he said severely and without civilized preamble. "Christine Daae, Erik?"_

_I had been afraid of this!_

_"What are you accusing me of now, Daroga?" I demanded guardedly. "Surely not murder?"_

_"I know that the girl has not been seen for the last two weeks.  I also know that if anyone disappears unexpectedly around here, you're usually to blame for it." '_

_Usually!_  Now _that_ was a pathetic attack, Daroga, and quite unworthy of your old stellar wit.  You had best make a better effort before I become annoyed with you.

_' "This is a theater." I shrugged. "Girls run off with their lovers all the time."_

_"Well, in this case it appears the lover has been left behind!  You must know that the child is virtually engaged to the Vicomte de Chagny.  Are you intending to send him a ransom note, too?"_

_I caught hold of Nadir's arm with a grip that made him gasp._

_"She is not engaged to him!' I spat furiously.'_

Nadir stepped back, his dark eyes suddenly alight with some barely guarded emotion – fear, of course.  I was glad!  No one in his right mind would spread lies of my beloved Angel in my presence.  No one except for the drastically foolhardy _and_ stubborn, that is.  

But he was my friend, even if I did have to constantly remind myself of that fact, especially in moments such as this one.  

I released his arm and took a step backwards as well, further into the shadows, where I was better concealed.  The less he could see of my facial expressions, which could all-too-well betray my emotions, the better!  I folded my arms across my chest, wrapping myself more closely in my black cloak, and let my head drop until my chin was just barely touching the starched white collar of my silken shirt; I then eyed him from beneath the dark cover of my hat, warily.

"How do you know this…for _certain_?" he asked, cautiously.

I shrugged again, nonchalantly, completely careless.

"I checked for an ad in the Époque – come along now, Daroga, how _else_ do you think I know?  Didn't you yourself just state that the child hasn't been seen for two weeks and that _I_ am usually responsible for such disappearances?"

He paled a bit, and looked over my shoulder, as if he was trying to see my lair beyond the lake: the palace where my princess, Christine, was sheltered – awaiting my return.

"Then…she really _is_ there." He sighed, seeming to grow old and weary, and said tiredly, "Erik, I was hoping that…my conjecture…wasn't true."

I made a light scoffing noise, a sound that had sent many souls in the past fleeing for safety.  When the Angel of Doom mocks, disaster is ahead.

"Of course you were, my dear Daroga!  And _now_ I suppose that you will tell me that the local Parisian gendarme forces do _not_ believe me to be the murderer of Joseph Buquet as well?" I stepped forward, my eyes sparking with barely controlled anger and spat viciously, "Please, _spare_ me your artificial pity!"

"Erik, you know that I would not present an false act to you – not ever!  But please, think before you dismiss my words as nonsense that you should not deign to heed: the girl has a life!  She has friends…a home somewhere…a young man who deeply loves her—"

My reserve snapped and I felt all of my rage come pouring into me, flooding my entire being with a black, violent explosion.

"A _life_!  _Friends_!  A _home_?  And a—Daroga, I should find it _entirely_ within _all_ reason and justice to wring your neck right now!"

My mind was thudding with the force of my anger, and I knew that in such a terrible mood, I would not know whom or what I was dealing with.  I took several deep breaths, letting the silence settle in between us, and then I spoke to him, the darkness of my thoughts and emotions reflected in the sound of my voice and in the light of my eyes.  

"Nadir, do you have any _idea_ of where she came from before this – do you know why she came here, to be with me, in spite of the fact that she knows what I am?  She has no family…no real home…no life, other than the drudgery that she was imprisoned into at the Opéra.  Her parents are both dead – her mother has been so from the poor child's birth, and her father was taken from her when she was no more than a little girl.  She has no family to go home to, no home to call her own, in fact…and…"

I trailed off, turning away to hide my emotions.  I would never be able to make him believe the things that Christine had told me.  Glancing back at him over my shoulder, carefully, I knew that he wouldn't ever believe anything that I told him flat.  

Well, he didn't have to believe me.  He didn't matter.  Christine was here of her own free will…she had told me…I trusted her…I believed her, and she…she believed in me.

I turned back to my companion, cold and reserved once more.  I spoke, coolly and formally, but my words – as I said them – grew ever more dark and threatening, like black lightning that flashed across the night sky.

"Nadir, listen to me and listen to me well, for I will _not_ repeat the words that I am about to say – ever…and if you do not heed them, I will not be held responsible for the consequences that result of your disobedience to my commands."

I narrowed my eyes, watching him and refusing to release him from the power of my voice and gaze.

"Stay _away_ from my house.  Stay _away_ from Christine Daae.  What happens to her is _not your concern_, nor is it anyone else's, save hers and _mine_.  You are _not to interfere_.  This is above and beyond your comprehension, and if I find that you are meddling in my affairs once more, ten times the years we spent in Mazanderan together will not save you!  I will hunt you down, like an animal, wherever you are, however you get there.  And I _will_ find you."

I paused and stepped closer to him, my hand moving to grip his arm, quietly but firmly, as I breathed my next words, punctuating them each with a deadly emphasis.

"And if you _ever_ come here again, I swear on everything that is holy…I _will_ kill you."

With that, I left him standing there on the banks of the underground lake, and poled the boat back over the lake, my thoughts descending rapidly into a black ether that I could not see an escape from.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

When I reached the house once more, I quickly and silently tied the boat to the dock and then stepped into the room beyond.  The door that led into my house was closed, which told me that Christine was waiting within for me.  _Good,_ I thought, darkly.

_It's best that she isn't here to see me like this.  _

Suddenly feeling very worn-out, very melancholy, and very old, I undid the clasp that fastened my cloak about me and swung it off of my shoulders, hanging it quietly on the hook on the wall nearby, and then crossed the room to the throne that waited for me. 

My throne – the throne of the omnipotent, all-powerful Angel of Doom.

The Phantom of the Opera.

I sat down in it slowly, painfully, seized by a deep ache that pained me with every move I made.  Closing my eyes, I tried to clear the memories of my conversation with Nadir from my mind.  But it is hard to forget such insinuations…such accusations…those kind of things were what had made my life miserable for many, many long, black years…

Why was it so hard for him to believe that a woman – a girl, a beauty like Christine – would want to spend her time at my side, to share a home with me?  Why was it so incredible to him that I could have feelings like…love?  Did I really seem like _that_ much of a monster to him?  

Of course, I knew why.  He had seen me at my worst; he had been there in my blackest moments.  Persia had not been a good time in my life, although I had achieved many wonders of my arts: architecture, magic, music, in that place.  Too vivid to me were the memories of what I had been in those days – the khanum's appointed Angel of Doom, a cold-blooded, merciless demon of an assassin who held no respect, no love, for the human race.  How many thousands of people, even _innocent_ people, had I been forced to send to their deaths as the shah's executioner?  If I couldn't be blamed for killing people directly, then many of my creations – the maze of mirrors, and other devices like it – could most certainly be held responsible for such atrocities!

I had truly been the mortal embodiment of my given title.  I had truly been the Angel of Doom.  

But I hadn't wanted to do some of the things that I had been told to.  It hadn't been my choice – _I hadn't wanted to do it_!  My only thought had been of eventual escape…and that indomitable desire, along with the countless threats against my friend's life, had been what forced my hand: my unwilling hand.

How could fate be so cruel – how could someone be compelled to live as I did, and for what means?  I couldn't see it.  I didn't think I ever would, in that moment.

Money, power, influence, even freedom…were these worth being branded as a monster for all time?

And now here I was: haunted by my inescapable past, my present guilt, and the looming morbidity that was known as my future.  Because of what I was – because of my face, really – I could never be anything but a horrible beast to the world.  It didn't matter if I was the most intelligent being ever to walk the earth, or the most talented or sensitive or sweet-voiced…the world would always see me as a monster not fit to walk in the daylight.  

I only hoped that, in the future, things would change for others who had the ill fortune to be born, or to become, like me – should there be any such people. 

As for me, I could never hope to have the woman that I loved as my wife, and no one would ever believe that she had chosen me of her own free will because I was ugly as sin…as death.

I felt my lips begin to tremble, and, since Christine was not about to see me in this moment of self-pitying weakness, I let my head drop to rest in my hand: the elbow of which I was resting on the arm of my chair.  

"_Christine_…" I whispered, and it came out like the whimper of a small child.

One tear was all I allowed myself – one tear, and no more.  Quickly then I stood bolt upright, shoving my emotions back under the mental shell that I always wore.  

Nadir had reduced me to this.  

_Oh, you would just _love_ to see that, now wouldn't you, Daroga?_ I sneered inwardly.  

I glanced back towards the lake, my gaze penetrating clear to the opposite shore where we had stood and argued on whom should be responsible for Christine's fate.  

_You would like to see me like this – groveling under the weight of the numerous sins of my past, under your righteous lecturing.  I know you would, and you know it as well._

_But I'll_ never_ let you see it!_

I slowly walked across the room and into the house then, closing the doors softly behind myself.  Candles were lit everywhere.  Christine and I had taken to lighting them all together in the evenings during the past two weeks that she had been in the lair with me; we would bring the soft, wavering, ambient light into the place together, and then she would join me in the drawing room for talk or story-telling, or in the organ room for music.  

We had led such a pleasant life in those times…each night I could almost forget that anything else in the world existed, I could almost forget my pain, guilt, and hopeless despair in the sparkling glow, the effervescence of her smiles, her words, her movements and beauty.  

In those times, we were simply Erik and Christine.

And I would fall even more deeply in love with her.

Just then, my train of thought was broken by the realization that there was noise coming from the kitchen.  Pushing the remembrance of my conversation with Nadir out of my mind, I went towards the source of those sounds – the kitchen.  I paused before the doors, listening.  Someone was within the room beyond, moving about and softly singing underneath her breath.  Gently, I placed one palm flat on the door and pushed it open, and then I saw into the room.

Christine, gowned in one of the many dresses that I had provided for her in her room with a large white linen towel pinned to the front of the gown, stood before the wood-burning stove, her face flushed a beautiful, velvety rose with the heat.  She turned around, hearing me clear my throat softly, and a smile instantly curved her sweet lips.

"_Mon ange_!" she exclaimed, setting down the spoon that she had been stirring something on the stovetop with and coming across the room to meet me: her slender, white little hands extended to me. "I'm so glad you've returned – I was beginning to worry that all my efforts were to pay off for nothing!"

Slightly bemused by this, I too distracted to shy away when she took both of my hands in hers and pulled me gently across the room with her, into the dining room.  

There, I saw that the long cherrywood table had been covered with a starched, snowy, laced-edged white cloth, with places laid for two.  I turned to Christine, baffled as to what she meant by this, although it was painfully obvious.  

_I must be more senile than I thought!_ I remarked to myself in my mind as I ruefully ran one hand through my hair.

"Christine…what _is_ this?"

She shot me a mock-reproachful look, her beautiful, wide blue eyes sparkling: making a vibrant contrast against her dark, full lashes.

"Dinner," she replied, matter-of-factly. "Now go wash up, M. _le Fantôme_, and then perhaps you would like to help me bring in the food from the kitchen?"

I could only obey, so surprised had I been by this.  My black mood instantly disappeared and I went for my room, to wash up as she had told me; and before I left it, I hastily reached into my closet and retrieved a new shirt and vest to wear over it.  The shirt was full-cut white silk, its flowing cravat and sleeves edged with foamy white lace, and the vest was made of a stiff, fine blood-red brocade with glittering gold threads making up its pattern.  

I put my hat away and then left the room, going into the kitchen to join Christine, who promptly handed me a basket of bread when I asked her what I could do to help.  I watched her disappear into the dining room, my eyes never leaving the delicate, unknowingly sensual swaying of her slender figure, the dark, rich fall of her silky, raven-like hair.  She was so lovely.  I knew why the Vicomte had fallen in love with her.

And I knew even more so why I had fallen in love with her.

On a whim of the moment thought, I went into the pantry where I kept at least a hundred bottles of vintage wines.  This was a special night – it was obvious, and I would do my part to make it as lovely and unique as _she_ had.  Kneeling down, keeping the basket of bread perched carefully in the crook of my arm, I scanned the rows of corks and finally selected an old, dark Merlot.  Then I left and joined her in the dining room.

Christine was a surpassingly good cook, and we spent dinner very pleasantly, talking and even laughing as we ate, enjoying ourselves very thoroughly.

_Oh, Christine, Christine…_

_What will I do when you can no longer be here with me like this?_

I had best enjoy it while I can.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *__


	5. A night out with le Fantôme

Author's note:  Remember how I promised a scene featuring a trip to the Bois?  Voila, here it is – only in a bit of a different way than it originally took place.  But don't worry, _mes amies_, it won't be bad!  Trust me and follow along, with your hand at the level of your eyes; Erik won't bite, have no fear…  ^_^

Disclaimer:  Erik is currently writing the music for this, Christine is my #1 model for the costumes, Meg helps me keep all the chapters filed correctly, Mme. Giry is creating the choreography, Carlotta and Piangi are in charge of catering, Raoul is the prop handler, and the managers are up to their necks in publicity work.  To tell you the exact truth, we're all starting a rebellion against Sir Andy and making our own musical the way we want it, even if I don't know Phantom or anything that has to do with it.   

Chapter Sixteen – 

A night out with _le Fantôme_

Dinner was over.  Erik and I still sat in our high-backed chairs, our conversation having slowly died off, leaving us each with our individual thoughts.  

I surveyed the remains of my food on the silver plate before me and then looked up, tentatively, at him: he held his wine glass in one hand, idly moving it in gentle circles, making the dark wine inside the clear crystal swirl smoothly as he eyed it contemplatively.  I sat back in my chair, turning my head to gaze at the flickering flames of the tall, white candles in a sconce on the wall nearby. 

_This was all too wonderful – if only I could be here, like this, forever…_

My mind drifted off from reality; times blurred, and still those candles continued to burn, their flames drawing ever lower and lower.

_' "…and this evening, if the air continues mild enough for your throat, we might take a carriage out to the Bois.  Would you like that, Christine?" '_

I started, guiltily, having been so absorbed in my own little counter-reality world that I hadn't even realized that he had been speaking.  I looked at him and found him eyeing me now, speculatively, waiting for me to answer.

_' "Yes," I said, with slight surprise.  We had occasionally rowed on the lake or walked along the bank, but this was the first time he had ever suggested taking me out into the real world above.'_

"Well then," he said briskly, pushing his chair back gracefully and standing, moving – as always – with his incredible, elegant cat-like style. "Let's have you out of that apron and gown and into something a little more appropriate – I'll not have you walking about the Bois in an evening gown, for it would mean no little damage to your precious voice."

I stood as he pulled out my chair for me as well, extending his hand towards with his perpetual grace: unfurling the hand from the wrist with a gesture that made my heart's pace begin to beat a bit faster as my knees went weak and watery.  His beautiful, mismatched eyes watched me, and I felt – as I had that first night when he had brought me to the lair – that I was begin put before some sort of test.

Trying to keep my breath steady, I put my hand in his and let him escort me out of the room.  As we moved into the foyer, I turned halfway back towards the dining room, belatedly remembering the mounds of dishes that had been left behind.  But Erik would not have any of this; with the air of a serene, benevolent parent, he shook his head and told me tenderly, "No, my dear – let them go.  We can take care of it later."

There was no saying no to Erik, and so I could do nothing but obey like a submissive little child.  I did as he told me and went to my room, there exchanging my gown of rose-coloured velvet for a lovely white-and-gold walking gown, pairing it with a deep blue hooded cloak.  I paused only another moment to replace my slippers with some delicate, ankle-length and high-heeled boots and to select a pair of white kid gloves.  

Then I went downstairs.  I found him waiting for me on the landing, gazing up as if he was a mortal who was watching me – an angel – descending from heaven.  There were a thousand different emotions passing between us in that moment; the air was fraught with them.  Then, he stepped forward and held out his gloved hand to me.  I gathered my skirts into one hand, holding them out of the way of my feet, and went down to him, placing my other hand in his.  He drew me close to him for a moment, his eyes boring down into mine, and I felt breathless.

"Christine…you are _so_ lovely, _mon petite_!"

I whispered a shy thank you to him, looking down as I blushed.  I was fully aware of his smile on the top of my head as he gallantly escorted me to the door.  We crossed the broad expanse of the organ room and then he assisted me into the boat, and, together, we made the journey across the misty, black lake, and up through the winding labyrinth of underground passages that kept his home from the sight and knowledge of men.  

He was no more than a darker shadow in the midst of that blackness: his white shirt and red brocade vest replaced with a black silk shirt and vest, coupled with his hooded black velvet cloak, he was a silent, invisible, yet warm and powerful presence whose strength and confidence made me feel as if I was safe and cherished.__

_'Later that evening, we emerged from the underground passages to find a brougham carriage waiting for us at the end of the Rue Scribe._

_We traveled to the gates of Paris, where the Bois de Boulogne stretched out its formal emerald acres in proud testimony to the late emperor's dislike of chaos.  For some time we explored those quiet, deserted paths that would be crowded by visitors in the light of the sun.  Even the coldest winter day attracted hundreds of skaters to the frozen lake and the chalet that stood on the center island.  Gentlemen, their faces swathed with mufflers, pushed fine ladies in sledges while liveried servants exercised lithe greyhounds swathed in overcoats.  In summer there were gondolas on that lake, lit with colored lights, an endless procession of happy Parisians passing through the delights of the zoological gardens.  All the simple, human pleasures that I knew Erik could never have shared, even in the days when he had still lived in the world.'_

He had never told me much of his life before…the Opera, I suppose, but from what I gathered in his wonderful stories of far-off lands, exotic cultures, and strange peoples I knew that he had spent some time in places that I couldn't even imagine.

Which was saying quite a bit, as my imagination tended to be somewhat…unleashed, at times.  

He had been a world-traveler at some point in time…but now, this was not the case.

_'If he had been here before, it would unquestionably have been after dark, when the park was cold and empty, entirely devoid of laughter and gaiety.'_

This thought saddened me.  The world was a cold and cruel place indeed if a soul could not walk openly among his fellow men simply because his face happened to be different from everyone else's.  In this day and age, and most likely in many days and ages before it, ugliness – let alone _deformity_ – was a sign of the devil, of God's punishment for some grave misdeed.  Erik had said so himself: he knew of this.

I suddenly felt chilled and voluntarily sought the protection, the warmth, of Erik's hard, strong arm; I buried my cold face against his broad shoulder, snuggling it into the rich black velvet of his cloak.  He took another stride or two before he realized what I had done, and then he looked down at me, smiling a bit in confusion and slight amusement.

"Too cold, _mon petite_?  Perhaps we ought to turn back," he said.

I shook my head against his shoulder, wrapping my arms more closely about his arm, and replied hastily, "No!  It's not the cold…I just wanted to know you were there."

"Well how could you _not_?" he queried, even more amusement in his tone. "I'm a walking black hulk – who _wouldn't_ know I was here?"

He was trying to make me laugh.  He did that often – saying things that were either purposefully silly or simply ironic.  It was a ploy that never ceased to work.  I smiled and rested my head on his shoulder again after looking briefly up at him for a moment that didn't seem to end.  "Erik." I said, a few seconds later.  He glanced at me.  "When will I know how 'Don Juan' ends?"

He suddenly sighed deeply, seeming to be abruptly filled with a grief that I couldn't comprehend.

"I don't know, _mon petite belle_.  _À personne savoire_."

He shook his head.

"I just don't know."

We walked on in silence: him, foreboding of aspect and grim, and me, hesitant and pensive.  Then, without warning, he looked at me again; and this time, his gaze was thoughtful and questioning.

"Christine…" he said, in a queer tone of voice, one that made shivers run up my spine, "Do you…are you…happy, with me?"

Something in his voice made me want to cry out and draw him into my arms, to make him forget the world and all of its insane cruelties.  It was as if he thought that I would say no!

I turned on him, stunned by the question and desperate to tell him the truth.

"Erik," I breathed, my eyes widening, "Of course I am!  Why would you think otherwise – how could you think otherwise?  Is it – have I done something that has served to make you think so?  Tell me and I'll—"

He stopped, turning towards me, one hand moving to grip my arm: tenderly and gently, as the other hand slid up to let two of his long, elegant fingers rest on my lips, effectively silencing me.  His mismatched eyes shone out from behind the white mask, reflecting the bright moonlight, as he said, reassuringly and comfortingly, "No, no, _mon petite_ – shh, no.  It's not that at all.  It's just that…that, well…"

"What?" I asked.  It wasn't often that I saw him inelegant: to tell the strict truth, actually, I had _never_ seen him inelegant, except for in the moment that I had removed his mask and we had seen each other face to face for the first time, and even then he had been incredibly dignified…open…graceful.  But right at the moment, he was clearly fumbling for words – and it surprised me.

He had been looking away, down the path, and then he turned back to me, his expression rueful, his lips twisting wryly.

"I had might as well say it right out, hadn't I, _mon petite_?" 

He sighed again, and moved his hand to push his hood back, running his fingers through his hair, an action that made it fall onto his forehead, its golden highlights glimmering in the moon's glow.  

Finally, then, "I have a…an acquaintance, a man whom you might say is a friend to me, under certain circumstances – I met him some number of years ago, in Persia.  He is the Daroga of Mazanderan, a law officer of sorts, servant to the shah-in-shah, and his name is Nadir Khan.  Lately, he has been residing in Paris and the idea that he is my sole conscience, my guardian, has obviously come into his mind.  For the last several months, he has been meddling in my affairs, poking his nose around in business – and _places_ – that he probably shouldn't, and…" 

He trailed off.

"And now he has discovered that I am with you, and he wishes to know if I am being held prisoner, and whether my fiancé is running mad trying to recover me – to rescue me from the clutches of the Phantom of the Opera?" I guessed.   His expression told me all-too-well that this was indeed the case.  I laughed then, as wryly as he had. "What a world, _mon ange_ – what a world we live in!  _I_ tell Raoul that I have no desire to wed him, _you_ tell your friend Nadir Khan that I am with you of my own free will…we tell the world one thing: the complete truth, and it _refuses_ to believe us."  

And then I shrugged, carelessly, nonchalantly.

"_C'est la vies_, _non_?"

Erik stared at me, his face unreadable for a moment, and then he threw his head back at the sky and laughed: the hypnotic, rich, deeply musical, golden sound echoing in the night.  When he looked back down at me, I saw that his eyes were sparkling once again, and he was grinning, his teeth flashing a brilliant white in the darkness.

"Ah, Christine, Christine – you never cease to surprise me."

Suddenly then, his expression sobered and he quickly reached out, over to me, and drew me into his arms, guiding my head to rest against him, in the hollow of his throat, while his hands anxiously sought my spine and hair, running themselves softly against me.

"And may you never cease to do so, _mon belle ange_."

Then he tipped my head back so that I looked straight up into his eyes.

"But as for Nadir's questions, as we are somewhat compelled to pay heed to the bloody infernal prying man…are you absolutely certain that you are really happy with me, my dear?"

I smiled at him tenderly.

"Am I absolutely certain?  Yes, _mon ange_.  It's just that…" Now it was my turn to trail off, searching for the right words. "I'm so tired to being ordered to do the right thing, to do as I'm told." I paused, knowing fully well that my next words would be in direct rebellion to everything that I had ever been taught as a woman. 

"Maybe…maybe I don't want to always do the 'right' thing."

He raised an eyebrow.  

"Do you mind when I tell you what to do?"

My smile broadened at his obviously teasing tone.

"Well, what do _you_ think?"

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

We returned to the lair soon after that, and I went to my room to prepare for bed – and to reflect.  There was so much to think about.  

I had stayed in the lair with Erik for more than three weeks now, since the masquerade, and he began to teach me the part that he wanted me to play in his opera – the part of the gypsy girl, Aminta, whose tragic fate was the shaping force of the entire plot of 'Don Juan Triumphant'.  

However, Raoul would soon return from England.  I would be forced to return home to my flat so that he would not suspect that the Phantom of the Opera was continuing to haunt me.

_Haunting me in my most beautiful dreams at night._

I thought this as I sat at my lavish dressing table in my room, brushing my hair slowly and contemplatively.  I had never really spent so much time with Erik in one visit to the lair.  Three weeks had gone by, and I was seeing something new of him every day.  He could be cold and distant, and he could also be furious and black, as I had already seen – but he could also be soft, tentative, gentle, and quite kind, which was how he behaved most of the time towards me.  His patience with me as he taught me my part in his opera was paramount.  I couldn't imagine being so sweet-tempered with a pupil of my own, if I had been in his place.  

He could also be shy and almost boyish at times, on the spare occasions when he let his sense of humor show through.  Sometimes,when we weren't busy doing anything else, he had led me by the hand up through the dark, winding passageways to the surface, and then he would show me how he could move about and both hear _and_ see things without being seen or heard himself.  He also showed me how he had played quite a few rather _nasty_ tricks on Carlotta, and I tried to reproach him for it, although my sternness was severely underminded by my uncontrollable laughter – especially when he sprayed some magic dust in her hair one day, turning it a bright, ostentatious blue.  

The memory of her reaction to that caused me to laugh softly again then, and I gazed at my reflection in the mirror.

One wouldn't think that the girl who looked out at me from the mirror's depths was the same ill-fated young soprano who had been kidnapped by an awful, ghastly wraith and carried off to his dark realm beneath the earth.  That was what a great many people most likely thought, I knew.  

But it wasn't really that way.  

I had come back because I wanted to be with Erik – because I didn't want to live without him, to face reality and the cold, hard world with the knowledge that he wasn't there to guide and protect me.  

No, I decided: this girl in the mirror, the child with a flushed, smiling face and large, wide eyes that sparkled with both hope and happiness was anything but an abducted, unwilling captive of the ghostly Phantom.

I turned and left my room, closing the door behind me, and made my way down the hall, down the broad, pristine white marble staircase, crossed the front room, and paused before the gigantic double doors that led into the organ room.  I had heard music playing when I had been in my room, and now the delicate strains of some beautiful melody came from directly behind those doors, in the chamber beyond.  

After hesitating for a moment, I pushed open the door and stood in it for a moment, looking into the room beyond.  Erik sat at the huge, magnificent pipe organ, a pen in hand with dozens of dripping candles lit all about him.  He was composing.     

I had long since learned that he could see alarmingly well in the dark, and his hearing was much more acute than any other human being's that I had yet come into contact with.  Thus, it wasn't a surprise to me that he turned from his work after a moment: a somehow dark, brooding look on his face, although the light in his blue and green eyes belied his true reaction to seeing me there.  

"What are you still doing up?" he asked, as I came to his side. "It's very late."

"I know." I replied, smiling at him sweetly. "But I wanted to be out here with you – it's my one last chance to do so before I have to…" I balked at saying my next words, as the awful reality hit me.  I had to go home. "Go back up."

He made an unappreciative noise, turning his back on me to write down a few more notes on the manuscript before him.  He muttered something then, and began to leaf through the papers, his brow clouding.  

I observed his profile carefully, trying to read the unmasked left side of his face for his emotions.  He was hiding them very well, however, and I could see nothing but annoyance at the fact that he wasn't finding the particular sheet of music that he was looking for.  Suddenly, he turned back to me, his eyes piercing through me.  I only rarely thought of him as menacing, but right now he seemed to loom over me.

"Did I wake you?"

His voice was so soft and gentle, so caressing and almost tender, that it completely took any menace out of his air.  I slowly shook my head and gestured to my attire.  I was still wearing the gown that I had been wearing earlier that evening.

"No, Erik."

He turned back to his music again.  Enchanted by the thought of seeing some of his musical work in progress, I leaned in, looking over his shoulder, gazing at the creamy white paper before us.  Moving so quickly that I scarcely even had time to realize what he was doing, he scooped the papers up before I had a chance to even glimpse the title at the top of the page, and held them away from me, saying in his sweetest, most condescending tones, "Oh no, _mon petite_ – you're not allowed to look.  That, I'm afraid, is a right that I must reserve for myself _alone_." 

"That's not _fair_!" I protested, and made a grab for his hand.  

A teasing grin suddenly flashing on his face, he lifted his arm and held it straight up, so that his hand was completely out of my reach.  I continued to advance on him, still trying to get at the music sheets, and we were both laughing then.

"Erik, _please_!  You're not being fair!" I repeated, to which he replied, still grinning his maddening, almost boyish grin, "_Fair_?  Who said anything about my having to be _fair_?"

"_I _did!" I railed at him, my voice full of desperation and laughter, but he only grinned all the more, easily evading my grabbing hands, and then I resorted to a very underhanded trick indeed.  "Fine then.  Be that way.  But if you want to be a naughty boy, it won't get you anywhere." I said, primly, like a mother who was reproaching her child.  Then I stood up, smoothed my skirts, and, turning crisply on my heel, left the room.

I went back inside the house, into the drawing room, and picked up a book of Eastern fables that I had been reading earlier that day, then seated myself in an armchair.  

A few moments later, I heard booted footsteps click across the marble floor and sensed Erik's presence in the room.  He stood in the doorway, looking bemused as he absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair.  I pointedly ignored him, and he quickly figured out my game.  He crossed the room and knelt before me, his eyes roving my profile.  

I kept my own gaze fixed on the book, and after a silent battle of the wills, he straightened, sending down on me a glare that was _supposed_ to be malignant and annoyed but didn't quite come out that way.

"_That_ is not fair!" he growled.

I burst out laughing, unable to control myself, and set down the book.

"Erik, you overgrown baby!  That's just too – oh, heavens…" was all I could manage to splutter out, completely losing the ability to string to words of sense together coherently.  I stood and wrapped both of my arms about myself and kept laughing, my giggles only intensifying when he continued to shoot me his baleful, dark glare.

"All right, that's it – come here _now_!"

He growled – playfully, I hoped – and lunged at me, whipping around with lightning speed, whirling me into his arms.  Shrieking, I gathered my skirts in my hands and ran from the room.  

Erik, of course, came out right behind me, and he soon caught up to me, but then I turned and whirled out of his reach.  I then dashed further into the house, and we both skidded around a corner, both attempting to keep our balance on the slick marble floor.  Somehow, I managed to put some distance between us and found my way into part of the house that I had scarcely frequented yet – as it was much larger than I had first known.  There, I discovered a large, candlelit room full of marble pillars.  I glanced behind myself, over my shoulder, for a split second to see where he was.  I heard the sharp click of his footsteps behind me and knew that he would catch up soon.  

With scarcely any time to plan my actions, I dashed behind one of the pillars and hid in its shadows, pressed up against the cold marble, struggling to control my breath and remain quiet.  Not a moment later, he was in the room.  I could hear his breathing, but only for a moment.  

Then, everything became as quiet as an undisturbed tomb, and I realized, for the thousandth time, how quietly he could move.  It was as if he was a shadow, gliding gently along a moonlit wall – and he moved fast!  I had seen very many examples of his grace, his poise and speed, all of which were executed with complete silence.

"_Quelle surprise_!"

I was grabbed from behind and hauled backwards by a pair of long, powerful, and muscular arms that somehow managed to be slender and yet well-developed all at the same time.  My back came up against a hard, curving surface like the plain of someone's chest, and then both of those arms locked around me, refusing to let me go.  After my initial shriek of surprise, I turned my head up and around, and found myself looking straight into the masked face of the Phantom of the Opera.

"You can't hide from me, _mon petite_," he said.  

I saw, suddenly, that there was a glint in his eyes that I had never seen before – something that unnerved me with its unfamiliarity and its intensity.  He whirled me around in his arms then, so that I came abruptly to face him, my skirts twirling around both his legs and mine.  I gazed up into his eyes, both somewhat frightened and wondering.  What was he going to do?

He bent his head, craning his neck down, as one of his hands moved up from the small of my back to my hair, taking a lock of it between his fingers and holding it to his lips.  "Did you know," he asked, slowly, almost seeming to contemplate his question even as he said it, "that you are very, _very_ beautiful, Christine Daae?"

I stared at him, benumbed with what was happening.

He kissed my hair and then lowered his hand, letting my hair slide through his deft, gentle fingertips.  His mismatched eyes stared out at me from behind the mask, like a prisoner who was caged behind cold iron bars, and I felt pity stir my soul for the poor, trapped soul that was held within his eyes.  

Then, that look went out of his eyes, replaced again by that look, the gleam of both darkness and light, that _I did not know_.

"Christine…"

He said my name in a voice that was half between a hoarse, rough whisper – incredibly like his usual, brilliant, cold tenor – and a low growl.  

I swallowed sharply, overcome by my raging emotions.  

The things that this man had said to me, the things he had done for me…they all seemed to have come to pass only to show me merely how much he cared for me.  Raoul had never treated me this way.  He hadn't ever been willing to take me away, into a world where people wouldn't stare and whisper and gossip and cut me down since I was poor and an orphan…but Erik had.  He had done so much for me.  

_He cares so much more than Raoul ever will._

That thought unnerved me even more, and I found myself involuntarily – instinctively, almost – pulling my hands closer around his arms, drawing myself closer to him.  I looked up into his sparkling, beautiful, mismatched eyes and my thoughts began to whirl again.  

I had never seen such wonderful eyes.  Two different colours: like night and day, ocean and land…earth and sky.  

He gazed down at me, his eyes piercing through me from behind the black porcelain of his mask, and I sighed shakily.

"Do you want me to stay, Erik?" I asked him, softly; even this did not seem like it was truly reality.  No, it seemed, instead, like some sort of tender, blissful dream.  The candles around us seemed to have shimmering golden haloes about them, and the shadows took on alluring, velvety black warmth.  _I could stay here forever,_ I thought –_ stay here, and simply rest in his arms: knowing that I am safe.  I am wanted._

_I am loved._

He looked at me for a moment, the same emotions that had overpowered me seeming to captivate him as well.

"Yes…of course I do.  I always want you to stay.  Forever."

I lifted my hand from his arm and brushed it through his silky, thick, golden-brown hair, trying to see his thoughts in his face.

"Even the shadows will your presence, my Angel."

_I am your Angel?  Just as you are mine…_

"Erik." I whispered, dropping my eyes from his as I let my head come to rest on his chest, with him towering above me. "We never really got to dance…at the masquerade…I wanted to dance there with you, all through the night…"

"Dance with me now," he said, and then he stepped away, and I saw his movements from within the shadows.  Within a moment, a beautiful, lilting, waltz-like melody filled the room, and he held out his arms to me.

"Come and dance with me, all through the night…"

And the waltz began, and we did dance…all through the night, whirling about the ballroom in the Phantom's lair, we two: the Phantom of the Opera, and Christine Daae.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *


	6. Twisted Every Way

Author's note:  And in this chapter, we see yet another normal day at the Opera Populaire:  complete with arguing, accusations, manipulations, plots against the Phantom, and a cameo appearance of a very Charles Dance-like scene between Erik and Carlotta.  Does this sound like _phun_ to you…?

Disclaimer:  I don't own Phantom – happy?

Chapter Seventeen – 

Twisted Every Way

Rehearsals were starting again and one morning, Raoul came to my flat, telling me that he would be taking me along with him to a meeting with the managers that day.  He told me nothing but that Firmin and André had something important that they needed to say to the principal singers in the Opéra Populaire's cast: Carlotta, Piangi, and me.  Of course, Raoul himself would be attending because he was the Opéra's chief patron and benefactor, _and_ my fiancé.   

I wondered, then, as I dressed myself to go, what was so dreadfully important that the managers had to say.  I also wondered if Erik would be there, unseen, listening, and watching as always: completely in control of the situation, even though no one acknowledged him.  

Then off we went.

As soon as I stepped out of the carriage and onto the snow-and-ice-covered esplanade that ran in front of the Opéra Populaire's grand façade, I knew that this day would be a long one.  Not only would I face the challenge of meeting with the managers, but I would also be held back from perfect calmness by my desire to see Erik.  His presence in my life was practically the only thing that I now desired.  _Almost. _ 

I shivered, pulling my cloak closer about me.  Raoul's arm found its way through mine and I turned my head to glance up at him from inside my hood.  He tipped his head to gaze at me: his debonair, black hat and white scarf making a striking contrast against his sunlight-gold hair.  "Shall we?" he asked, smiling gently.  

He saw my hesitation and, mistaking it for apprehension of once more entering the Phantom's domain, he held me close for one moment, his fingertips lightly caressing my face.  I closed my eyes.

"It's all right, you know," he said, softly. "There's nothing to be afraid of anymore, Christine – I won't let him hurt you."

I shook my head slowly as we mounted the steps together.

"That's _not what I'm worried about, Raoul."_

His face wore an expression of puzzled concern as we stepped inside of the Opéra Populaire's warm, dark interior.  Here and there, I spotted workers polishing the gigantic, masterpiece statues, light fixtures, and banisters that littered the Opéra's finery: others were performing various others tasks to ensure that the opera house would look its finest at its next performance. Raoul walked us up the grand staircase, down the corridors, and towards Firmin and André's spacious office, and before he had even opened the door for us to enter, I heard Carlotta's voice from within and knew that there was trouble.

_As usual._

Raoul swung the door open for me and I entered the room, apprehensively.  A moment later, he took my hand and led us towards the group that was already standing in the center of the office: Firmin, André, Carlotta, and Piangi.  I slid my hood off of my head and looked towards Carlotta, who greeted us first.

"Ah! Here's our little rosebud!" she spat, rolling the R in 'rosebud' extravagantly, and Firmin stepped towards us, putting on a smile although I saw the darkness that flitted behind his eyes.  He was obviously going to try to make the best of a worst-case scenario.  _Oh no, what's happened now? I groaned inwardly, waiting for his words._

"Yes, yes – Miss Daae, quite the lady of the hour!" he said.  I gave him a bemused look, not quite comprehending his sudden commendation towards me, and André, seeing my confusion, quickly explained.

"You've secured the largest rôle in this 'Don Juan'."

Carlotta's acidic, half-audible comment slashed through the air to me.

"Christine Daae?  She doesn't have the voice!" 

I ignored her words as Firmin implored, exasperatedly, "Signora, _please!" _

Raoul, meanwhile, had summoned the managers' attention and was asking them, in a low, almost incredulous tone, "Then I take it you're agreeing to his conditions?" 

Over his voice, I heard Carlotta breathe something to herself, but I didn't completely hear her words, for André was saying to Raoul, "It appears, monsieur, that we have no choice." Raoul was about to say something more, presumably about the alternate route to obeying the Phantom's commands that he had discussed with the managers on the night of the masquerade, but Carlotta suddenly shrilled, cutting him off. 

"She's the one behind this – Christine Daae!"

_That is_ it_!_

"How _dare you!" _

I took a step towards her.  After all of the years that I had allowed her to upbraid, ridicule, and mistreat me, after all that I had done to be a help to her, after everything that she had said and done to me, I had had enough.  Carlotta Guidicelli was _not going to treat me as if __I was the perpetrator of this mess.  _

She shot me an equally cold look as she retorted, "I'm not a fool!" 

A confrontation between us was imminent, for I wouldn't allow her to bring the blame upon my shoulders and _she wouldn't back down to me.  My anger surged through my veins as I spoke, once more, having almost reached her._

"You evil woman – _how dare you!"_

"You think I'm blind?" Carlotta asked me, bitterly and caustically.  

The question had me at my wits' end.  I only just kept myself from lunging at her and slapping her across the face.  

"This isn't _my fault!" I burst out, almost in tears.  _

I wanted to shake the whole affair off of my conscience and let _them figure out what to do about the Phantom's opera on their own.  I knew what they all wanted to do, even though no one had said anything about it – they would try to use the Phantom's opera to defeat him.  If I took my part, they would use me to betray him to his downfall.  __I wouldn't do that to him – not now, not _ever_.  And it was in this frame of mind that I spoke the words that I knew could either spell my destiny or my doom. _

"I don't want any part in this _plot!"_

Firmin was the first to react in the immediate two seconds after my announcement.  He stepped forward, trying to reason with me as he said, "Miss Daae, surely…" and André cut him off, clearly irritated with me, snapping, "But _why not?" _

Poor, unfortunate Piangi – who could speak hardly any French – was baffled at this scenario, and looked to Carlotta, asking, "What does she say?" 

Firmin turned to me and said, impartially, "It's your decision." 

Then he rounded on me, as annoyed as André. 

"But _why not?" _

I stared at him with vacant eyes, knowing that – should I tell them why – they would never even begin to understand.  Their minds just weren't like that.

"She's backing out!" Carlotta told Piangi.

I felt as if my mind was in a whirl: everyone was talking around me asking questions and making accusations.  The managers were telling me to be reasonable, that it was a great honor and that I fitted the part, as Carlotta seethed in the background, breathing insults in Italian, and Raoul spoke to me.  I barely heard his voice through the maelstrom of my mental consciousness.  

"You have a duty!" André told me.

I turned on him, my blue eyes blazing, as I said, for everyone to hear, "I cannot sing it, duty or not!" 

Then Raoul's hands came around my shoulders, caressing them, as he tried to calm me; he spoke into my ear, soothingly, although his words were only more irritating to my frenzied, bemused state of mind.  "Christine," he said, gently, "You don't have to do _anything, my love – they can't make you, do you hear me?  __No one can make you do this." _

I turned around: gazing into his ice blue eyes, and knew that I had to say something to stop this.  He didn't understand – he never would, but I couldn't let him go on looking at the situation in the way that he was or…

Suddenly, the door swung open.

Mme. Giry entered, Meg trailing closely behind her.  Meg, as soon as our eyes met, started as if she wanted to come over to me and comfort me somehow.  She was stopped as her black-gowned mother spoke: her low, rich voice halting all conversation in the room.  "Please, monsieur," she said to Firmin, as she held out a pale slip of paper – a blood-red seal riding its crest – to him, "Another note." 

With a look of grim expectancy, as if they were surrendering to an assigned fate, the managers wearily gestured to her: read it.  As she began to read the note's contents, I glanced around the room and saw the group's various reactions as they were singled out by the Phantom's written words.  

It _was Erik's writing – there was no earthly doubt about that.  The letter held the same exact arcane, dry, and bitter tone that his voice and mannerisms did.  Closing my eyes, I saw a vision of him, sitting at the massive pipe organ in his black, splendid lair: his tall, slight figure gracefully bent over his letter as his strange, mismatched eyes acutely followed the words that he wrote down, as if he was scanning over every syllable, every letter, for its truth in the world.  I could see the wavy, elegant outline of his golden-brown hair against the greater backdrop of shadows behind him: his high, perfect brow etched with thought and deep, dark pensiveness.  I could almost read his thoughts… _

_Christine._

I flinched then, as though the word had just been breathed through the air, somehow, to me.  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up, through my haze of dark eyelashes, to see Raoul's eyes as he gazed, darkly, into my face.  I tried to smile, to reassure him, that I was all right and that he need not be concerned.  However…

Meanwhile, Mme. Giry was reading the note.       

" 'Fondest greetings to you all!' " it ran, " 'I write this to send you a few instructions before rehearsals start: Carlotta must be taught to act…' "

Just then, another, bodiless voice came in on Mme. Giry's words, overpowering her voice and stunning us all to silence.  I stiffened, knowing that the voice that we now heard was none but Erik's – my Phantom of the Opera.  We all gazed upward, as if we expected to see him lurking in some dark corner of the room…but of course, that was all stupidity, for we all knew…_you never saw__ the Phantom of the Opera._

"…not her normal trick of strutting under the limelight," the voice continued, vibrating in the abruptly silent air. "Our Don Juan must lose some weight – it's not healthy in a man of Signor Piangi's age.  And my managers must learn that their place is in the office, _not the arts."_

There was a pause and the silence seemed to draw breath.

"As for Miss Christine Daae…"

Another pause.**__**

"No doubt she'll do her best – it's true, her voice _is good.  She knows, though, should she wish to excel, she has much still to learn…but such things will only come to pass if her pride will allow her to return to me, her teacher.  Your obedient friend…"_

_How ironic._

I could barely keep from smiling knowingly to myself. 

The voice trailed off, then disappeared entirely, leaving us frozen in our places, completely unable to move.  The silence was as cold and numbing as the blackest hour of the most freezing, blizzard-filled night of the winter.  Mme. Giry read the last two words of the letter: her voice low and quiet.

" 'And _Angel."_

Another split second of utter, impassable, deadly stillness whisked by us, like the wings of a noiseless bat; suddenly, I realized that all attention had focused on Raoul as he stood beside me: his eyes bright with a new thought.  

"We have all been blind," he said, seeming to speak more to himself than anyone else in the room. "And yet – yet the answer is staring us in the face!  This could be the chance to ensnare our clever friend…" 

André and Firmin were instantly rapt with anxiousness for his next words. 

"We're listening!" André said, as Firmin commanded, "Go on!" 

Raoul drew out the words of his plan, slowly, as if he was developing it even as he spoke.  I listened, a knot of horror growing in my breast as he continued.

"We shall play his game – perform his work in _complete concordance with his instructions – but __we shall be the party to hold the ace this time. For, you see," he said, turning to me with a look in his eyes that terrified me, "if Miss Daae sings…he is __certain to attend." _

He left off and the managers abruptly picked up on his lead.

"We make certain that the doors are barred…" André said, carried along by the idea; likewise, Firmin put in, "We make certain our men are there…" and Raoul bit off, hastily: ominously, "We make certain they're _armed!" _

I had to hastily catch at the corner of the office desk to keep my face from being introduced to the rather dusty carpet as Raoul made the announcement that was the equivalent of a death warrant to Erik, already savoring the victory that was _impossible for him – _any of them_ – to taste._

"The curtain falls – his reign will end!" 

My vision swam in the split second of stunned silence that followed.__

_No,no, NO__!_

I was barely aware of what happened after that; from what I could tell, everyone instantly began to argue, plead, or discuss Raoul's plan of action.  Carlotta and Piangi were rabid in their Italian, speaking to each other in the language that none of us could understand; Mme. Giry was begging to managers and Raoul not to do something.  I stood there: my hands clasped around my head, my eyes closed as I tried to shut them out.  

This was _madness!  They could never defeat Erik in such a conventional, human way!  Raoul's plan would only lead to someone's injury or death – they couldn't possibly desire such results!  __They couldn't __possibly __do this!  _

Something snapped inside of me.  

I burst through the tumult with a wild shriek. 

"If you don't stop, I'll go_ mad!" _

Instantly, the chaotic gabble of voices ceased and I suddenly felt very weak.  In a split second, Raoul's arm was around my waist and he was whispering soothing, gentle nothings into my ear as Firmin and André wheeled their huge, leather-backed chair around the desk and seated me in it.  

Once the dizzy sensation in my temples had dissipated, I turned to Raoul, clutching the lapels of his coat with anxious hands.  

"Please, Raoul," I pleaded with him, trying not to cry, "Don't make me do this!  Raoul, it scares me – don't put me through this ordeal by fire.  I can't do it, Raoul – I can't destroy him.  You don't understand: mere human snares can't defeat him.  It won't work, and you know it!" 

I turned my head away, unhappily, as everyone gaped at me. 

"What I once used to dream I now dread.  This plan will never succeed, and he'll _never leave this place.  He'll always be here…__always…__it won't stop here."_

Carlotta's words were the first that I heard.

"She's_ mad," she breathed, in horror._

Raoul made me look at him, his hand cupping my cheekbone, and he gazed into my eyes, as if he was trying to read me.  I stared back at him, with empty, haunted eyes that told him nothing…and revealed nothing to the world except for my sadness.  

"You know that he's nothing but a _man," he said, gently, as if he was trying to understand, but I could tell without any hardship that all he was really trying to do was ascertain, for his own assurance, that I really __wasn't mad, "Yet while he __lives, Christine, he'll continue to haunt us until we're __dead…?  Is this…__true?"_

I averted my gaze from him and spoke to myself.

"Twisted every way – wrenched in each possible direction…what answer can I give?  Is this where the road leads, to this horror – am I to betray the man who once inspired my voice?  Do I have any alternative, any _possible way out of this nightmare?  I __know I can't refuse…and yet I wish there was some way that I __could." _

I closed my eyes, praying as my lips moved with words too silent for anyone else to hear, "Oh God in heaven, help me.  If I agree_, what horrors wait for me to stumble upon them, in this: the Phantom's opera…?"_

As soon as those words had fled my soul, I felt Raoul's hand on my shoulder, and I turned my head to look at him as my soul began to ache relentlessly.  

"Christine, Christine…" he said, very tenderly, even as I felt something – some painful, undesired emotion – inside of me disintegrate and vanish into nothingness, "I love you…don't think that I don't care about how you feel.  It's just that…" 

He trailed off and looked over his shoulder.  My gaze instantly roved to see what he was staring towards, and I realized that it was the group of silent people who stood behind us, waiting to see if I would cooperate…if I would betray my Phantom.  My mind began to whirl again at the implications of the thought that Raoul wanted to use me as bait – that I was to be a mere decoy in the downfall of the man who had given me my life, my voice…and _his music.  _

I couldn't do it.

"Without you, Christine," Raoul's voice slowly ebbed its way into my conscious mind: a remorseless reminder of everything that I had come to know during the past six months, "It will all be lost for us.  Every hope and every care of every person here, in this place, rests on you alone now—"

NO!  

No, I wouldn't do it!  Let them brand me as the Phantom's servant, as someone who cherished him – someone who was purposefully ignorant of his crimes – but I wouldn't be their toy: their Judas to poor, unknowing Erik!  _Never!  _

I scrambled up from the chair and rounded on him.  I must have looked like a madwoman to all of them, telling from the way that Raoul stared at me: an emotion in his ice blue eyes that I couldn't quite read.  Ignoring him, I made a rush for the door, but he called after me, halting my exeunt.

"Christine!"

He had betrayed me – every last one of them had betrayed me.  I turned around and met his eyes for one split second.

"I'm sorry!"

And then I ran out the door, down the hallway, as tears – the hot, pitiless, penitent tears of a grief-stricken, downtrodden child – streamed, unheeded, down my cheeks.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *
    
    I was still sobbing as I ran to my dressing room and threw open the door, then closed and locked it behind myself.  Everything seemed to be in a blur as I fell into my dressing table chair and laid my head on my crossed arms, letting my tears spend themselves.  Then, there was a knock on the door.  
    
    "Christine?  Christine, please – open the door – speak to me!  Christine!"
    
    Raoul.  Simply about the last person that I wanted to see at that moment.  I remained where I was, not moving an inch, and stared blankly into the dressing table mirror before me.  Perhaps if I ignored him for a long enough time, he would give up and leave me in peace with the shadows and my thoughts.
    
    A more insistent knock on the door – he was getting frantic.
    
    "Christine?  _Christine_!"
    
    I spoke without turning around, my voice completely devoid of emotion.
    
    "Go away, Raoul.  I don't want to see you – or anyone else – for a very long time."
    
    He wasn't even silent for a second.  
    
    "Oh – no!  It's Erik…he's in there with you, isn't he?" A pause, then belligerently, "Come out and show your face, you coward!  Stop haunting Christine – you can't control her, you monster!  Leave us in peace!"
    
    I suppressed the desire to make a sound of frustration and, instead, rose from my chair and crossed the room, moving slowly, calculatedly, and deliberately.  I opened the door and looked out at my former friend and erstwhile lover.  His blue eyes were shining and he looked honestly – pitiably – concerned.  Afraid.
    
    "Raoul." I said, softly.  He gazed into my face. "Raoul," I repeated, firmly but gently, "Erik isn't here…but if he were here, you would be honestly regretting your words right at this moment…just as I regret your other words on that night after 'Il Muto'."
    
    "Christine…" he whispered, his voice broken. "What do you mean?  Which words are you talking about?"
    
    He knew as well as I did what I was about to say.
    
    "Any of them – all of them.  I regret that you told me that you were in love with me, I regret that you told me to forget him, that he was only a wraith: a 'waking nightmare', and that you asked me to marry you.  But…most of all…I regret that you had the heartlessness to call a man: simply another man, who has a mind, emotions, and a soul just as you do, a monster."
    
    He stared at me, as if I had suddenly turned into Erik himself.  "Christine," he breathed, horror in his voice, "What has he done to you?  How can you say such things – how can he control you this way…make you say these things?"
    
    There was nothing more that I wanted to do in that moment than stage an all-out diva tantrum right there at the door of my dressing room.  However, I didn't.  I was more than that – Erik had taught me to be more than that, although he hadn't meant to, and probably was utterly unknowing of it.  I drew myself up and gazed at Raoul, softly and compassionately.
    
    "He isn't controlling me, Raoul.  He never was.  But let me inform you now of who is – and who will be, from now on.  I am controlling myself, Raoul.  I am tired of living in a world that thinks it can manipulate me with its cruelties, its vices, and lies, a world that shuns me because I am poor and without parents, and a chorus girl – and most of all because I am a woman.  I will no longer be told what to think, what to say.  I will no longer be told how to act.  _I_ _will control myself_."
    
    A great, consuming silence stepped in between us, and made my stunning words seem to ring out in the dark air.  Raoul then dropped his eyes from mine, shaking his head.  "So now you've gone all suffragette?" he asked, bitterly.
    
    I reached out and raised his face to mine with one hand.  I smiled ever so slightly at him for a moment.  Then, I spoke.
    
    "No, Raoul.  You just never asked me if I loved you."__

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Erik resumes the narrative…

After Christine left for her home, I stayed in the lair with not much else to do until the managers' meeting with the principals of 'Don Juan'.  As usual, I spied on them and heard the ever-repeated, seemingly endless cycle of bickering, pleading, and accusations that just about every one of them put forth.  Sickened by their childish take on things, I left before the meeting was over.

I would give Christine her private singing lesson from behind the mirror that day.  

Since the Victome had returned, she begged me not to let him catch us together, and I knew all-too-well why she asked this of me: she was still scarred by the memory of that night after 'Il Muto'.  I couldn't remember very much of it myself, but she obviously did, and I was forced to respect her wishes.  But then, after all, it wasn't such a terrible scenario – behind the mirror, I could gaze upon her to my heart's content, and no one would ever know except for me.

Her lesson would be at noon, and right now it was only twenty minutes after eleven o'clock.  I had some time to spend before I could go to her – but somehow, today, my usual glee in haunting the theater was strangely diminished.  I was quite acutely bored, and I spent a good amount of my time before the lesson simply stalking the secret passages of the Opéra, devoid of thought or feeling.  I had just turned a corner behind a wall that made up part of a large corridor near a row of dressing rooms when I heard a very irritating, very familiar voice.

Carlotta, of course; she was standing in the corridor, conversing with some of the elder members of the cast, and there were a few ballet girls tagging along just outside of their circle.  _No doubt, they are hoping to catch some of the wanton's usual gossip,_ I thought, and was about to continue on my way when I heard the name 'Christine' fall from the diva's lips.  I turned abruptly, freezing.

"Well, if he thinks she's so good and talented," Carlotta was saying, in her heavy Italian accent, her tone fraught with biting malice, "then why doesn't he come straight out and say so to the managers, instead of all this hiding behind walls and making bodiless voices?  Besides, the little squeaky mouse can't sing worth a tin thimble – and she's much too skinny and thin!  What could anybody see in the _gamin_?"

Oh, Signora Guidicelli.

Thank you for that incredibly brilliant and oh-so-original monologue!

You've just given me something to occupy the rest of this hour with.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

I stood silent behind the wall for a moment, looking into the heavily decorated, opulent, and highly ostentatious dressing room.  Its one occupant – Carlotta – sat at the vanity table, watching herself in the mirror as she brushed at her hair with a jeweled comb.  

"Hello, Carlotta."

I touched a lever and let the wall panel in front of me open, revealing myself to her.  The woman stiffened in her chair, seeing my reflection in the mirror: the image of a horrific, bat-like presence garbed in all black, complete with a velvet cloak and a menacing, unforgiving black mask.  Her hazel eyes bulged and she went ashen beneath her powder and rouge.  I nearly smiled, icily, and stepped into the room, drawing a large trunk after me.  "I have something for you." I continued. 

Meeting her gaze with unconcealed, cruel exultation, I gestured with an elegant flourish to that trunk and flipped its lock open, raising the lid.  

"I hope it's to your liking."  

And then a horde of frenzied, disoriented rats – confused and eager to escape from their confinement within the dark box – swarmed out of the trunk and into the room, their squeaks filling the air.

"Rats for a rat."

I turned and went for the open wall panel again, closing it behind me, and walked away, leaving Carlotta in her dressing room, perched atop her ornate dressing table chair, shrieking and hysterical.

_And let's hope you've learned your lesson this time, Signora…_

_Because the next time that I have to deal with you and your hubris concerning your talents, I will take much more drastic action._

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

When I finally reached Christine's room, I was very late.  Apologies rising to my lips, I went to the mirror…but she had already left for rehearsal.  I mentally gave myself a very thorough round of verbal abuse, ruing my bad timing, but in the end, there was nothing that I could do about it.  I was late, but it wasn't the end of the world.

Then I noticed something unusual.

There was a piece of folded and sealed paper resting on the floor just inside of the mirror.  I stooped to pick it up, questions rising within my mind – and saw that my name was upon it.  Christine had written it to me.  Hastily, I broke the seal and scanned over the contents of the note inside.   She had waited for me to arrive for our lesson, she said, but then Meg and Mme. Giry had come to fetch her for the rehearsal and she could not stay behind.  However, that afternoon, she was planning on making a visit to her father's grave at the church in Perros-Guirrec…and she wished for me to meet her there, for she had something very important to tell me.

If I came, she asked that I would play the 'Music of the Night' on a violin to let her know that I was there.  What she needed to tell me so desperately, I had no idea; what her intentions were in asking me to meet her there were completely unknown to me.  

But I could only obey. 

As I was preparing to make my journey back down the lair, I paused to watch the practice for a moment.  Surely I could spare a single second of time to see if M. Reyer was carrying out my instructions to their greatest affluence.  Surely I could tarry to see her sing – sing for me …  

I found the practice to be in the midst of a momentary standstill.  M. Reyer was berating Signor Piangi about his lack of propensity for the correct tonality of Don Juan's lyrics, and, of course, Carlotta – seeming completely recovered from my trick in the dressing room, blast it! – was railing about something, as usual, while Mme. Giry spoke to her calmly.  The chorus was chattering among themselves and time was being wasted.  

I sighed and went to work.

Down below, on the stage, the piano that Reyer normally played upon during practice rang to life, pounding out the music from 'Don Juan Triumphant' with great force and rhythm.  I smiled dryly as the startled chorus froze and began to sing the piece with surprising accurateness.  Suddenly, I realized that, already, someone was missing from the chorus: seemingly vanished from her seat.  

And then I saw the slim, small, sapphire-cloaked figure of Christine Daae as she slipped silently, gracefully off of the stage and into the darkness beyond the wings.  

I followed her. 

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Author's note:  I always liked that scene with the rats…take that, Carlotta (hehehehehe)!


	7. L’Ange et la belle

Author's note:  So, here we stand:  Christine and Erik are off to Perros-Guirrec, and we all know what happens there.  (Another Erik-gets-a-tad-violent scene – wheeee!)  

Disclaimer:  Can anybody recommend me a good disclaimer muse?  Mine's gone somewhat AWOL at the moment, and my other disclaimer/claimer muse from my Beauty and the Beast story can't work for this one, so right now I'm left with nothing to work with.  Okeeee…I don't own Phantom, I just write about it for phun.  

Chapter Eighteen – 

_L'Ange et la belle_

Christine resumes the narrative…

Taking a quick glance behind myself to make sure that my exit was unnoticed, I stepped through the massive front doorway of the Opéra Populaire and into the biting, ice-cold air of mid-winter Paris.  Then, as I stood there, my cloak blowing about me as the wind tore at my voluminous, white skirts, I listened to the silence.  In the give-nothing, frozen atmosphere that surrounded the exterior of the opera house, I was finally able to think again.  

If I didn't come up with a way to both do as Erik wished _and_ somehow save him from the managers' plot, all would be lost – literally.  I couldn't betray Erik, I knew that.  I couldn't, _wouldn't, do such a thing to him.  I had made that choice, but now I had to escape, to make my plans.  I had left a letter inside the mirror, informing him that I needed to desperately needed to tell him something and of where I wanted him to meet me. _

I fully intended to tell him of the plot.  

If I couldn't find a way to rescue him, to keep him from danger, I would at _least_ give him a way to escape this dire fate.  

So then I closed my eyes, gathering my cloak about my body for warmth, and prayed.

"Help me." 

The wind carried away my whispered words as soon as I had spoken them.  I went on, knowing that circumstances were completely out of my hands now.

"Please.  I can't do this alone – I never could." 

I opened my eyes, slowly allowing myself to see my surroundings again, knowing what I had to do.  The Opéra Populaire held nothing but indecision, hopeless frustration, grief-filled tears, and black, horrible betrayal for me…for _anyone really.  So I gathered my cumbrous skirts into my hands and ran down the icy steps of the Opéra Populaire's grand façade.  I lost a slipper in the process and had to go back for it, but I waved to a passing carriage, flagging the driver down.  _

As he pulled over to the side of the street and waited for my bidding, I gritted my teeth and berated myself impatiently: _You know, there is a reason__ why ladies wear such tiny little shoes and abstain from dashing down large staircases, Christine Daae!  Why do you have to be such a blockhead?  What if Erik saw you acting like this? _

I stood from the steps as soon as I had finished pulling my slipper back onto my foot and brushed restlessly at the errant strands of my hair that the cold January wind had whisked across my forehead.  Then, composing myself and attempting to look as if I knew what I was doing, I crossed to the carriage and spoke to the driver, tipping my head back to look up at him.  

"Excuse me, sir," I said, raising my voice so that he could hear me, "Could you please take me to Perros-Guirrec in Brittany?  I can fully compensate you for your troubles."

The driver turned back to his four sturdy, smoke-coloured stallions and flicked his whip nonchalantly, delicately, over their shoulder blades as they tossed their heads, eager to be on their way once more.  

"But of course, mademoiselle.  Please, we are your servants."

He jumped down off of his seat and opened the carriage door for me; I gave him a sincere smile and thanked him, saying that I would pay him the total price of my passage when we arrived in the town that I had named.  The driver nodded and shut the door behind me.  The carriage shifted slightly as he climbed back up into his seat and I glanced out the window as I settled into my seat.  

And then I began my journey to Perros-Guirrec in Brittany – the village that held the final resting-place of my father, Charles Daae, little knowing what I would face there.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Very many summers of my childhood had been spent in Brittany.  

My father had had a summerhouse there, where we had stayed when I was only a very little girl.  I can still remember the taste of sweet, saltwater air on my lips…the feel of the teasing, gentle breezes that blew off of the ocean as they tangled their light, deft fingers in my long, dark hair…the smell of pine trees curling around me…the sound of seaside grasses as they rustled in the wind.  

Brittany had always been a place of happiness for me.  But it was not happiness that I now sought.

In Brittany, there was a small hamlet known as Perros-Guirrec.  It was a tiny, quaint, out-of-the-way province: a friendly seaside town where everyone seemed to know each other by name.  My father's wish had been to be buried in Perros-Guirrec, and I, as a miserable, lonely child, had watched a group of four grim pallbearers lower his coffin into a grave there.  I hadn't visited the summertime home of my childhood since his death, but now: as I found myself once more gazing at its surroundings, I realized that nothing at all had changed.  

Nothing had been altered.  The town square with its hitching post, fountain, and spray of ever-cheerful red geraniums, temporarily wilted by the winter's snow and ice and cold, were still there; a mother and daughter duo still ran their millinery shop next to the warmhearted, hearty baker and his family of ten.  I will never forget my first sight of that town: I can recall – with perfect detail, to this day – the flood of emotions that had almost overwhelmed me when I stepped out of the carriage that had borne me from Paris to Brittany's tiny Perros-Guirrec. 

I deviate from my story, however.  

After I paid the obliging driver of my carriage, I turned and gazed at my surroundings: remembering…knowing.  Then, I shook myself out of my reverie and began my trek down the road that led towards Perros-Guirrec's sole church. It was a beautiful, fairy-tale chapel with a bell-tower and a combination of forest and garden that surrounded it.  And it was in that church's graveyard that my father was buried.  

Moments later – Perros-Guirrec was a small town and it didn't take long to get to any place there – I had found my way to the church and stood at its gate, gazing upwards at it.  I heard the soft chiming of the mid-afternoon bells and, instantly, an old, memory-filled poem came to my lips along with the sound of those bells.  I stepped inside of the gate and began to walk towards the solemn, quiet cemetery.

_Little Lotte _

_Thought of everything and nothing…_

_Her father promised her_

_That he would send her the Angel of _

_Music…_

_Her father promised her…_

_Her father promised her…_

And then I had reached my final destination.  

Feeling as if I was entering the undisturbed, majestic tomb of some ancient pharaoh, I slipped silently across the broad, snow-covered yard, the iced-over surface crunching ever so slightly beneath my slippers with each step I took. I drew my hood off of my head as I reached the centre of the lawn and looked with longing, searching eyes.  

Far back within the cemetery was my father's grave: a large, stone mausoleum with a canopy-like shade of ivy growing over its length.  So many years had passed since the monument's placement that the plant life had been allowed to run wild around, above, and in it, casting a sort of rustic, untended aura about its stones.  

It was a truly beautiful place – the type of place that induced all sorts of memories.

I stopped before the mausoleum and stared at it, unable to move.  The wind whispered enticing secrets around me, inviting me to forget everything in my life and merely enjoy the day, but I found that I couldn't do anything of the sort.  I couldn't abandon the tangle of lies, broken hopes, and desperate passions that composed my life: not now…not ever.  I took a seat a little way off from the grave and spoke to the air, which seemed to listen attentively.  

"You were once my one companion…" 

I murmured those words, speaking to no one in particular.  If anyone had walked past and heard me, I doubt that I would have cared. 

"You were all that ever mattered to me – my friend, my _father.  Everything was perfect with you and me, Father, and then my dreams, my __world…they were shattered."_

I then changed my tone, speaking now in almost barely a whisper.

"Why did God give me Erik?  I believed that you would send me the Angel of Music when I was a child, Father – _you remember!  __L'Ange de Musique?  I thought that he _was_ an angel at first, __mon père, because he is.  No one else sees it…even he doesn't see it, I think.  But he is.  He has always been with me."_

I shook my head, trailing off at that sentence.

"He never left…and he never will.  He said it himself.  I don't _want_ him to leave, Father…and yet it seems as if there isn't any way for me to keep him with me.  Unless I find some way to save him, I will lose him…whether we wish for such a thing to happen or not."

There wasn't any way to go on then.  

I stood, tears streaking down my face and dropping onto the curved neckline of my flowing white gown.  Then, I took one last glance at the mausoleum, knowing that answers wouldn't come from it…_ever.  _

Silence.  And then…

Music.

"_Christine_…"

"Angel, are you really here?"

And then, without a single moment of warning, he emerged from behind the sculpted, Gothic cross that crowned the top of the mausoleum.

He was there: _really there…he had come, at my call.___

_The Angel of Music, the Phantom of the Opera._

_Erik.  _

A full distance of more than twenty feet separated us: he, on top of the statue, and me, on the ground, incapable of any action but staring at him.  I stared at him, paralyzed by his dark beauty, wondering if what I was seeing could possibly be reality.  

He didn't move: gazing back at me with his strange, beautiful, entrancing eyes – the eyes that seemed to pierce straight through me and see everything inside of my soul.  He was wearing his usual, dramatic, impossibly elegant opera garb, I noticed: complete with the diabolically-shaped, black velvet fedora hat crowned his high brow, cutting low over his forehead and nearly hiding his right eye.  His cape moved gently in the wind, like the resting wings of a giant bat, but Erik himself made no movement.  

It seemed as if we were both too spellbound by the sight of each other to react…even though words – actions – seemed to be called for.  Finally, I found my voice and spoke to him, although it seemed as if I was dreaming the whole entire scene.

"Erik…"  

And, although I heard the soft crunch of booted feet on the gravel and ice in the gardens behind us, I paid the sound no heed as Erik spoke, his beautiful voice soft and tender, enticing me to come to him.  Had he been any nearer to me…

"We have no hope in this world, _mon amour_…" he said.  I took a step towards him, never once taking my gaze from his.  I was too afraid that he would disappear, evaporating into thin air, and leave me once again. 

"But now I have this chance to take you with me, to make you mine, and leave this world – this world that is so unkind, so cold and mindless…"

"Will you take me with you?" I asked, my voice a murmur.  

He held out his hand to me and I looked into his face.  The expression upon his handsome features seemed desperate, broken, sad, and yet desiring…loving and passionate.  I wanted to bring him into my arms, take off his mask, and cover his hands and face with kisses, to hold him and never let go.  

I kept walking towards him.

"Angel, beautiful child – do not shun me!" he said, softly. "Come to me, my love…come and _be mine."_

A voice broke into the silence between Erik and me and I whirled around, the moment broken, as someone shouted angrily, "Angel of Darkness, cease this torment!  Let her go, for goodness' sake!  _Let her go!" _

I looked back to Erik.  The expression on his face had altered and it instantly terrified me.  Raoul had somehow found his way to me and now he was here, keeping Erik from luring me back to himself…something that Erik didn't remotely appreciate.  

A mocking, icy, and utterly dangerous gleam coming into his eyes, Erik turned towards Raoul, facing him with murder in his countenance.  ****

NO! I mentally screamed at them, NO!_  This can't happen – you can't do this again!  Don't do this to me__ again!  _

Knowing that I would be unable to bear the possibility that Erik could fall once more: when I could stop it, I made a futile attempt to keep them apart.  

"Raoul, _no…!" I began, but Erik's voice drowned out my words._

"Bravo, monsieur – such _spirited words!" he cried.  _

In the next instant, a pole that appeared to be some sort of pike materialized in his hands.  As I stared on in horror, I realized that it had a sculpted, silver skull impaled on its top end: its eyes were made of faceted, blood red rubies.  Erik's long, slender hand momentarily tightened on the pike and I was unable to understand what he had just done until a ball of fire – hot, devouring, white fire – spewed from the skull's gaping mouth.  It fell, burning, to the ground and exploded, with mind-shattering noise, directly at Raoul's feet as he began to walk, slowly and deliberately, towards Erik.  

I felt as if I was an invisible, unheeded, small, and overall helpless component of some sort of stygian nightmare.  I couldn't move as the two men in my life faced each other: both seeming to burn with indescribable, unthinkable fury.

"More tricks, monsieur?" Raoul inquired, calmly, coldly and Erik beckoned to him: inviting him to come forward and receive his just reward, as his now dark eyes sparked an inferno that was even more infinitely dangerous than the dazzling balls of fire that issued forth from the skull in his hands.

"Let's see, _monsieur," he said, mockingly echoing Raoul, "_How far you dare go_!"_

Another fireball smashed into the ground only a few inches in front of Raoul.

"_More deception?  __More violence?" Raoul asked.  _

Erik's expression became black as the most ominous of thunderclouds on a stormy night as yellow lightning flashed through his eyes, and his face twisted in a show of complete and utter contempt.

"Raoul, please, _no_!" I tried again, but he kept on walking, closer and closer, towards Erik.  The fireballs that the skull shot landed, relentlessly and calculatedly, just ahead of him but never once touched the young Vicomte.  

"That's right, that's right, monsieur!" Erik said, an edge of sarcasm in his voice, "Just keep walking this way!"

Two more fireballs.

"You can't win her love by making her your prisoner!"

I stiffened at Raoul's statement and wondered, staring at his back, _How can you condemn Erik for doing the same things that you__ did?  How can you have the gall to even approach__ him?  Do you even have any idea of whom you're dealing__ with, Raoul?_

He was an idiot, but I couldn't let him be killed.

"Raoul, _don't!"_

Without even glancing my way, he ordered, "Stay back!"

Erik obviously wished to take Raoul's attention off of me, however, and he called, still taunting, "I'm here, I'm here, monsieur: the Angel of Death!  Come on, come on, monsieur – don't stop, don't stop!" The seemingly singsong, light cadence of his words held a transparent, black satin veneer of playfulness and teasing over his true intentions.  

Three more fireballs hit the ground at Raoul's feet.  

More and more intense, more and more terrible, the tension in the air mounted, as Raoul came to stand almost directly below Erik, in the perfect range of whatever weapon Erik could choose to deploy in order to dispatch his young archenemy, and I felt my whole body trembling.  

_I had to stop this!_

Blindly, madly, I rushed across the graveyard, shrieking, "Raoul, _stop_!" and lunged in front of him, putting myself between the two of them.  Both Erik and Raoul froze within an instant.  Erik looked terrified.  I couldn't believe it.  I had never seen him look so utterly frightened in all of the time that I had known him.  

Suddenly, Raoul gave a growl of anger, and before I knew what was happening, he had shoved me roughly to the ground and was running forward again, towards Erik.  

But Erik had jumped down from the mausoleum, rising slowly from the perfect crouch that he had landed in, indescribable grace and ominous coolness in his demeanor, as his black velvet cloak swirled about him.  I scrambled to my hands and knees, shouting out Raoul's name with an anger that was more passionate than I had ever before known—

But it was already too late.  

Raoul threw himself at Erik, and they both went down into the snow, thrashing about as they each tried to defeat one another.  

Then Raoul cried out and Erik rose, struggling up onto his feet: his hat knocked off of his head onto the snow, leaving his golden-brown hair free to fall free out of its combed-back position.  His features wore a feral snarl as his mismatched eyes snapped with fury.  Raoul came up after him, holding his wrist painfully for a moment, and then he began to swing wildly with his fist at Erik, who – strangely enough – barely avoided him.  Both were breathing hard and were coated with the powdery white snow.

"Erik, please!" I cried to him, but it seemed as if he hadn't heard me.  He grabbed one of Raoul's arms and twisted it around, then threw him backwards.  

Raoul was stunned momentarily by this, but then he gave his own snarl of anger and lunged at Erik, catching him off-balance.  They fell backwards onto the stone steps of the mausoleum, Raoul landing on top.  I saw him pull back his arm and ran forward, shrieking his name once more, and then I heard two things at the exact same time: a sickening thud and a sharp, cruel splintering of porcelain as Raoul's fist punched through Erik's mask – and came into contact with his face!  

Erik screamed in pain and threw Raoul off like a ragdoll.  Raoul was stunned for a moment and remained motionless.  Then, he scrambled to his feet and stood back, his face white and contorted with horror, as he gaped at the Phantom.  

"It's – it's not even _human_!" he gasped. "It's a _monster_!"

I stared at the awful scene in absolute shock for a split second, and then I turned on Raoul, staring at him as if he was the Grim Reaper.   Then I ran to Erik's side.  He was still lying there on the steps, writhing in pain and humiliation, arms thrown about his face and head.  I went down beside him, reaching for his shoulders, still staring at Raoul in grief-filled anger.  Erik's entire body was stiffened, like granite, and he hardly responded to my touch.

"How _could_ you?" I breathed, looking at Raoul and shaking my head – unable to believe what he had just done.  "My poor Erik!" I whispered, bending over my fallen Angel, my hair coming loose and showering over us like a dark curtain.  He was still writhing back and forth, moaning in pain, and he wouldn't look at me.  

"Christine!" Raoul's voice was filled with absolute revulsion. "Don't touch that thing!  It's a monster!  Come away from it!"

"Christine, it's no use.  It's the beginning of the end now – we can't stop it." 

Erik's voice was suddenly very calm, very steady, and so dangerous that I moved away from him involuntarily.  He stood, slowly, keeping one hand on the right side of his face, holding the shattered remains of his mask in place.  I gazed at him, unable to take my eyes away, seeing that blood seeped through the cracks in the white porcelain.  Erik's eyes were burning with bitter rage as he faced Raoul.

"A _monster_, Monsieur le Vicomte?  Perhaps.  We shall see.  But know," he said, as he moved away from us, back into the shadows beneath the ivy-covered mausoleum, becoming a mere shadow himself, "Know that this monster – this Angel of Darkness, of Doom – has fallen in love with your fair maiden…"

He disappeared then, and his final words drifted to us out of the darkness.

"And when a monster loves a maiden, _the end will not come_…"   

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

The nightmare came to me again that night.

This time, it was a thousand times worse than ever, for I knew exactly whom I was searching for and why I was searching for him.  In the end of the dream, I ran into the lit room, through its Gothic-shaped doorway, and Erik was there, collapsed on the floor and seeming as if the very life in his veins was being slowly drained from him.  His mask lay on the floor beside him, like a pitiful, dying soul.  I ran to him and gathered his slight, almost weightless form into my arms.  

"Christine…why didn't you come back?" he asked, his voice almost less than a whisper, and I sobbed, my tears falling onto his face, as I begged him, "Please, Erik – don't die!  Don't leave me!"  

But his head dropped back in my arms and I wept as my heart felt as if it was being torn out of my chest by a burning knife.  

"No!  No, please!  Please, _don't leave me_!  _Erik!"_

And then I heard the laughter again.__

_The laughter of the cruel world that had destroyed an angel._

I awoke, screaming, and tore at the blankets that surrounded me, as if they were serpents that were trying to slither around my body and choke me.  Then, as I realized that I was awake and that this _was reality – that the world would really destroy Erik with its hate, and that, if I didn't somehow find out a way to save him, the one I loved most, with my every thought, breath, and movement, would die as I looked on._

I would lose him.

_And this time, it would be forever._

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *   

Erik resumes the narrative…

As soon as I had somehow made my way back to Paris and the lair, I had dissolved my mind into an unspeakable ether of blackness.  I don't know how long I stalked and rampaged in the halls of my shadowy underground realm.  All I know is that not a single human or inhuman thought entered my head during that whole entire time.  

Eventually, however, I broke down.  

I couldn't go on forever, running like a wind-up toy.  So, without even realizing it, I left the main room of the lair, completing my fifty-thousandth and last circuit around the silent space, and stumbled blindly down the corridors, through the rooms of the lair, to the door of one certain room.

Christine's room.

I scarcely dared to open the door; I had never entered that room except when she was within it.  After that moment, I had never again ventured into her room.  Somehow, it seemed as if it was some sort of sacred grounds, a Mount Olympus for Venus – my Christine.  I was Vulcan: the dark, crippled lord of the subterranean realm, a creature not worthy to set foot within her quarters.  

But now…now I knew, somehow, without a thought to guide me, that the only place that I could find solace was that room.  And why, someone may ask?  _Why?  Because the place had seen her moments, she had breathed its air, lived in it…_

Because it was _hers._

Hesitantly, I pushed open the door and stood there for a moment, on its threshold, as I stared blankly, uncertainly, into its shadows.  The room was just as she had left it only a short time ago.

Suddenly overcome by my fatigue and raging emotions, I staggered across the room, groped around at the ornate dressing table, my hands shunning the touch of her belongings there: a necklace, a hair-ribbon, and tiny music box, and finally managed to find the candelabra that stood on the table-top.  I lit the thing, very clumsily, and promptly fell to my knees beside the bed, burying my head in the coverlet as it swathed around my face.  Eventually, I pulled myself, painfully, to my feet and, after a moment on indecision, collapsed face-first onto the bed itself.  

It goes without saying now that I then sobbed uselessly into the pillows where Christine's head had rested for so many nights.

_This is useless – why do you torture yourself, Erik? I asked myself as I lifted my head from the pillows, the stinging skin of my face making full contact with the cold air around me.  I stared dismally at the gold-worked counterpane as it glowed, riddled with a marriage of sparkles and shadows, in the light of the candelabra's fire.  The voice in my head went on, none-too-gently. _

_What were you thinking, Erik?  Did you actually think that there was ever any__ possibility that you would hold her in your arms every night as your wife – a young child like her, an angel, wedded to a mangled freak like you?  She's so innocent, and yet you would ruin that by keeping her in shackles with you__…?_

"It's hopeless."

My words vibrated into the silence, then disappeared, as I turned to gaze, surrendering, at the one candle that remained to light the room.  As I watched, its glow sank from a sparkling yellow into a golden orange, then a rich blood red, then a soft, hesitant blue…and then it went out.

And from there on, someone may ask?  What happened from there on?  This will be my answer, and make full use of it…

Nothing.

Nothing but silence.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

I dreamt of her that night.  

We were standing in a garden somewhere – the golden, fairy-tale towers of a far-off, picturesque castle glimpsing through the emerald green treetops in the sky above us – and Christine was gilded in the most indescribably beautiful gown that I had ever seen.  She looked lovely.  And I – I was somehow whole in a way that I had never been in my entire life.  My dream self put up a hand to my face, and felt that I wore no mask, and the rough, disfigured, and uneven, ultimate deformity that I had worn for so many years was no longer there.  

I was a normal, perfect human being. 

As I watched, Christine smiled at me and then turned around, glancing coyly over her shoulder as she called to me, "Come along, Erik!" Her voice seemed to echo in the wonderful air, and her laughter pealed like a bell, rippling and crystalline. 

"_Come and find me_!" 

And then she glided through the dense, leafy foliage and disappeared.  I ran after her, pushing aside the brush and peering to see her as she ran, just ahead of me but never seeming to get any closer, and we darted further and further into the forest.  

Suddenly, I came to an abrupt halt, seeing – for the first time, as I looked around myself in apprehension – how the forest had changed.  No longer was it bright and colorful in jeweled loveliness: no, now it was dark, threatening, and maze-like.  

I turned round and round, searching for a sign of her and called out, fearfully.

"Christine!"  

Then, from far off: "Erik!"

"Christine!" I cried again, breaking into a run, "Come back!"

There was no reply.  

"_Christine!"_

Suddenly, I was no longer in the midst of a forest, but at the gates of a walled garden.  I looked around myself, wondering how to get in, and then I saw Christine again.  She was standing before a doorway that was entirely covered in ivy – thick, black ivy – and she was smiling again, beckoning to me even as I watched.  

"Come to me, Erik," she said.  "Come to me."

I stepped forward, towards her, and once I was within her reach, standing in front of her and waiting, I stared down into her eyes, as the warm, teasing breezes of the fairy-tale landscape whisked playfully around us.  I gazed at her, every part of my being melting into helpless, joyful surrender.  Her expression shifted to one of understanding: she knew how I felt.  

Then, she reached up, slowly, as she smiled into my eyes with a bright, power-giving sparkle in her blue eyes, and her fingertips closed around the lapels of my jacket.  Still smiling, she gently pulled me to her, guiding us both into the curtain of ivy, and I felt her warmth near to me as we stepped through the tangle of undergrowth.  

"Erik," she breathed, her whisper pulsating into my head…

And then I came out of the ivy and found myself on the edge of a precipice in a dark, wasted land where thunder crashed and lightning burned in the air with the smell of sulfur.  It was as if I had just stepped into Hades itself.  

I looked around, as the rank wind whipped around me, its smell burning at my eyes as if it was composed of an invisible legion of daggers.  "Christine!" I cried in anguish.  The wind instantly carried my words away and I fell to my knees at the edge of the precipice, weeping as my heart was shredded in two.  

Then, something landed across my shoulder blades, knocking me off balance, and I only escaped falling into the black, bottomless abyss below me by grabbing onto the ledge of stone with one hand.  I heard laughter and a blinding whirlwind of dismal, biting sand appeared above me: the laughter emanating from it.  

"And you will…_DIE!" A screaming, ragged voice seethed the savage, visceral words, from within the whirlwind; it moved and surrounded me.  I raised my free hand to cover my face, but the cloud instantly ripped it away.  And then I lost my grip on the ledge and fell into the never-ending depths of the pit that yawned below me._

_No!_

I awoke from the nightmare and jerked myself up in the bed, gasping for air and forgetting where I was.  Something was wrapped around my throat.  I reached up with a feral snarl to rip it away from me, but it gave no resistance as I did so, and when I peered at it closely, I realized that I held nothing but a limp white pillowcase in my hand.  I must have wrenched it off of its pillow in the midst of my nightmare, I realized, as I threw it away from me in irritation.  

Suddenly very drained of energy, I fell back against the pillows and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself.  After a moment, I reached up with my right hand and drew it across my face, scrubbing my skin tiredly.  Then, I turned my head, slowly, and my gaze happened to center on the ornate clock that stood across the room from me.  As soon as my mind had registered what time it was, something very much like panic rushed through my veins.  

It was almost four-thirty in the afternoon – and tonight was the performance of my opera!  I would be _late!_

I tore myself off of the bed, ran across the room, growling something not too kind to myself in Persian, fell out the door, and stumbled – in a frenzy – into my own room.  There, I furiously changed my wrinkled slacks, dress shirt, and jacket for a fresh set.  I had left my mask in my room previously: it was lying on the table beside my bed.  I placed it on over my face first.  That taken care of, I ran an unsteady, trembling hand through my hair, trying to smooth it into some semblance of order, and then I placed my hat on my head, drawing it down low over my right eye so that it partially hid the mask.  I threw open the doors of my wardrobe, found my opera cape, and whisked it promptly over my shoulders.    

Finished with that, I left my room, closing the door behind myself, and left the lair to its usual contemplative, brooding silence, beginning my journey to the surface and the evening ahead of me.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

As soon as I had reached Box Five, I knew that something was wrong.  

Rehearsals were clearly over for the afternoon: the chorus, ballet corps, and principal actors having gone home to ready for the evening's performance.  They would return shortly, however, at around five o'clock to begin their three-hour time of preparation for the opera.  The audience would arrive at exactly five minutes after eight and the premier of 'Don Juan Triumphant' would begin at nine o'clock sharp. 

But, as I have already stated, something was wrong in the auditorium.

Normally, stagehands and their like would be arranging the scenery for the gala – this afternoon, no such thing was happening.  Before I could become angry at Firmin and André for so blatantly ignoring my explicit orders for perfection, however, there was sudden movement on the stage and I learned that I was not alone in the room.

The young Vicomte de Chagny stood on the stage, surrounded by a few of the local Paris fire officers – or gendarmes, whichever you prefer.  There was also someone down in the orchestra pit, among the members of the orchestra: who were tuning their instruments, but I couldn't quite make out who or what it was.  

As I observed them, the chief fire marshal blew his whistle.  "You understand your instructions?" the marshal barked.  Severally, the firemen replied, "Sir!" 

Then, the chief said, "When you hear the whistle, take up your positions.  I shall then instruct you to secure the doors."

I made a face, wondering, _'Secure the doors'? Why__?_

"It is _essential that __all doors are properly secured."_

_Again, I ask you: why__?_

Firmin, who was standing on the stage, almost out of sight, with André, turned to his co-manager and asked, as if he was nervous, "André, are we doing the right thing?"

André seemed annoyed, as well as slightly uneasy.  "Have you got a better idea?" he snapped.  The fire chief turned to Raoul, who was standing nearby in silence, watching the proceedings.  _Ah, I thought, smiling coolly, __Here is where I make the discovery of what on earth is going on!_

"Monsieur le Vicomte," he asked, "Am I to give the order?"

Raoul nodded, curtly.  "Give the order."

Several things happened after that: the chief blew his whistle and the firemen fanned out into the seating area: leaving Raoul and the two managers standing alone on the stage.  It was a perfect time for me to play some sort of nasty trick on them, but I let the moment go, overseeing their actions with marked interest.  Suddenly, Raoul leaned over and called to the person who stood in the shadows of the orchestra pit.

"You in the pit – do you have a clear view of this box?"

He gestured to Box Five and I was glad that I had obscured myself in the shadows.  I was shocked into immobility when a _marksman_ stepped into the light and replied to Raoul, "Yes, sir."  I almost choked as the realization of what was going on began to dawn on me with awful limpidity.  "Remember," Raoul continued, as I grappled with my emotions, "When the time comes, shoot.  Only if you have to – but shoot.  To kill." 

The icy way that he said those last two words reminded me of my own tone at times; I smiled, in spite of the awful situation.  

The conversation went on, with the marksman asking how he would know when 'the time' was, and Raoul replying that he would simply know, without any question, and the managers inquiring to Raoul if Christine Daae would sing.  I almost choked for the second time.  

_She_ was a part of this?  

_It couldn't be!_  

Raoul then told them not to worry as the fire chief approached and announced that his men were in position.  Raoul gave him the go-ahead and the chief sounded his whistle.  Suddenly, doors were slammed all over the building, the sounds echoing in the open air, and the firemen answered, one by one, "Secure!"  I then decided that the Phantom of the Opera would have a field day with this plan of the Vicomte and the managers.  Very softly, I projected my voice and called to them, making it seem as if I was standing somewhere far up in the back circle of seats in the auditorium, "I'm here: the Phantom of the Opera…" I then made my voice dart from place to place, and the firemen began to run in the direction of the words.  

Finally, I called to them from Box Five itself, stepping into the light so that they could see my waist, chest, and shoulders – but not my head.

"I'm here: the Phantom of the Opera!"

The marksman then abruptly fired a shot from his revolver.  Fortunately for me, he was an awful shot and I stepped back into the shadows, unhurt and cool.  Raoul rounded on the marksman, furious, and screamed at him, like a little boy who had just seen one of his toys being broken, "_Idiot!  You'll kill someone!" Pleading feebly, the marksman said, "But, Monsieur le Vicomte…"_

I had had enough of this.  "No 'buts'!" I cut in sternly, throwing my voice into the air above their heads, "For once, Monsieur le Vicomte is _right_.  Seal my fate tonight!  I hate to cut the fun short, but the joke's wearing thin.  Let the audience in – _let my opera begin_!" 

And then I turned around, leaving them to their confused and terrified silence, and made my exeunt from the box.  

Tonight, the actors of the Opéra Populaire weren't going to be the _only ones to play a part.  Somehow, destiny would be spelled for every living, breathing soul on the stage, and things would be drastically changed._

Forever.

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Author's note:  Oh dear, he's mad again…  (R&r and I will love you forever!)  @à--- for those of you who have commented so far!


	8. Past the Point of No Return

Author's note:  "_Past the point of no return…the final threshold – what warm, unspoken secrets will we learn…beyond the point of no return…?_"  Okay, so perhaps my lyrics aren't exactly on the beat, but it was pretty close…right?  ^_^  Here is 'Don Juan Triumphant' and all of the madness (hehe) that ensues because of it.  Enjoy!

PS  For those of you who have commented on Raoul…yes, I _did_ want to make him pitiable in that one scene where Christine tells him she doesn't love him because no, I don't exactly hate him.  Think he's a fop – yes.  Don't want him with Christine – yes.  But hate him?  No.  I just happen to like Erik more, and that (along with artistic license as to how I portray the characters) is my only excuse.

PPS Cat: Yes, well, I simply adored the Charles Dance way of dealing with Carlotta, but how did Julian Sands do it?  (Just out of my insane sense of curiosity…)

And for everyone, hopefully soon I will be getting some of my Phantom artwork put up on a phan site.  When this is done, I will post the link…so please drop by and see my stuff, and tell me what you think!

Disclaimer:  I don't own Phantom.  *sobs*****  I don't own Phantom – I don't own Erik, Christine, Meg, Mme. Giry, Raoul, the managers, Carlotta, Piangi, or Nadir.  I don't own Phantom.  Cruel world – I've only been to the show just _once_!  *sobs again, then runs off to grab her little sister's Ken doll who is dressed up as Erik and cuddle him*** **  

Chapter Nineteen –

Past the Point of No Return

Christine resumes the narrative…

It was the night of the premier.

Stagehands rushed around on the stage, behind the curtains that obscured them, trying to get every last minute item into place, as the little girls of the ballet corps fluttered – like anxious, tittering butterflies who didn't know where to go – around the wings and the wardrobe mistresses shooed them out of the way, bustling to find their employers, the principal actors in the opera.  

Silent and pensive, I sat in my dressing room, having already been dressed and made-up for my rôle, and stared into the mirror on my vanity table, wondering how I was going to make it through the evening.  Instead of the answer that I so desperately needed, however, it was my own reflection that stared back at me from the mirror's silver-black depths.  

The young girl there – the child with large, hungry blue eyes, pale, small features, and a mass of dark, thick hair – offered me no answers as she gazed into my face.  Just then, I heard the door creak slowly open behind me.  I flinched, expecting to turn around and see Raoul standing there.  But, a moment later, the person who had just entered revealed herself to be someone totally different.

"Christine, _cherie!  May I come in?"_

I turned around and smiled wanly.  "Meg!" 

Her expression literally shone rays of joy and girlish excitement as she ran across the room to me, flushed an exuberant, pretty pink.  When she had kissed and embraced me, she stood back and spoke, trembling with delight.

"Oh my darling Christine _cherie," she said, marveling at my Aminta costume.  Erik had given intricate, flawless drawings to dictate what the characters of 'Don Juan Triumphant' should wear, and André and Firmin had made certain to obey to the minute of his orders.  And I had wondered how the man could be such a genius!  "You look so beautiful!  I cannot wait to see you sing tonight – you will certainly make everyone look pale in comparison!  Mama says that…" _

And she went on with her sweet, childish prattle, speaking of everything and anything as I turned back to my table, calmly restraining my unexplainable urge to break down into tears.  At length, however, Meg became aware of my silence and she knelt beside me, putting her small arm around my shoulders, and her emerald-green eyes stared into mine, filled with concern.  

"Christine…" she said, softly. "Are you all right?" 

I shook my head no.  Then, rallying my presence of mind, I lifted my head, inhaled and then exhaled deeply, and turned to her.  "Meg, Raoul and I are not going to be married." I told her.  

My little friend was instantly taken aback, as I had expected she would be – how else could someone possibly react to the knowledge that a sparkling, young engagement full of hope and dreams had been so suddenly and horribly broken?  It didn't surprise me: I had known that the whole thing had always been a farce, a play-act, but Raoul, the managers, and clearly everyone else had really been expecting to see it happen.  Meg's eyes were filled with dismay and pity as she stared at me in the five seconds of silence that passed us by as soon as I had spoken my revelation to her.  

Stricken, she asked me, almost at a loss for words, "But Christine – _why?  Why have you done this?  I thought that you were __in __love Raoul!" _

I gave a bitter laugh to that, smiling ruefully as I looked down at my hands.  "No.  How could I have been in love with him?" I shook my head again, still smiling my mordant little smile. "I never loved him." 

Meg turned my chair around and knelt in front of me, taking my hands and holding them tightly as she strove to read my face.  "Christine, _please!" she cried, begging me. "__Why did you break the engagement?" _

I stared at her for a moment, then told her: my voice slow, calm, and deliberate.  "Because it was never a real engagement.  I always thought of Raoul as only a friend, Meg…but I never loved him.  How can I marry a man who I never loved?"

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

That evening, the cast of the Opéra Populaire gave their finest performance ever in the premier of 'Don Juan Triumphant' – and yet, it seemed as if something was very, very wrong, and that a horrible tragedy would soon befall us.  I tried not to think about it as I sang the words of the songs in the Phantom's opera, but forcing myself to be blissfully ignorant of the reality around me wasn't something that I could do…especially tonight.  I glanced at Box Five every five seconds during the performance, hoping to see him there.  But, of course, I saw no such thing.

The words in the arias of 'Don Juan Triumphant' were fiery and impassioned, riddled with emotion, deception, and raging plots for revenge and conquest.  I was shocked at the attitude of my own character even during the performance.  That night wasn't the first time that I had sung the part of Aminta, but I finally discovered the meaning, the feeling, behind the gypsy girl's words.  Aminta was a dreamy, passionate young woman who acted on her impulses and poured her heart's blood into her every action, word, and thought.  Her character had put me askance at first, but now…now as I sang her part, I realized that she and I shared a curious similarity to each other…almost as if we were the one and same person.  

Incredible…but somehow not unbelievable.

The final scene of 'Don Juan Triumphant' was set in the giant front hall of Don Juan's home: an arch crowned its width far up on the stage.  Behind the arch, almost hidden behind a shield of heavy, ornate curtains, was a smaller room; it was in that room where the climax of the opera would take place.  Centre-stage was a long, fine table, heavily laden with all sorts of scrumptious delicacies and décor.  There was only two chairs set at it, however, which told the rapt audience that the table would not be the scene of a large and jovial banquet.  

Passarino, Don Juan's servant, was supervising the preparations of the room as Don Juan's veritable army of sixteenth century ruffians and hoydens, all of whom were fanatically devoted to their master, filled the room with their movement, sound, and colour.  The chorus that they sang was clamorous and almost discordant: its words were spicy and as full of electricity as a bolt of lightning.

_Here the sire may serve the dam,_

_Here the master takes his meat!_

_Here the sacrificial lamb _

_Utters one despairing bleat!_

_Poor young maiden!  For the thrill_

_On your tongue of stolen sweets_

_You will have to pay the bill – _

_Tangled among lying cheats!_

_Serve the meal and serve the maid!_

_Serve the master so that, when_

_Tables, plans, and maids are swayed,_

_Don Juan triumphs once again!_

On cue, Signor Piangi, dressed in the elaborate, slightly garish garments of Don Juan, stepped onstage.  Passarino stepped over to him as Meg, playing a gypsy dancer, spun across the stage: her tiny, arched feet flicking quickly over the floorboards, and pirouetted coquettishly for Don Juan.  

The members of the chorus abruptly poured into the wings, pressing around me as I stood just beyond the stage, watching the performance and waiting for my cue, and disappeared until the stage was set for the finale and bows.  

Meanwhile, Don Juan had thrown a purse to Meg's gypsy dancer: she clutched it and flirtatiously minced offstage.  Then Don Juan and Passarino had a musical conversation as they discussed how they would deceive Aminta and would therein triumph over all else.  

I didn't quite understand Erik's point in this, but that really didn't matter.  I was only playing the part – my comprehension of the littérateur's unspoken, true meanings to his work wasn't even a part of the production.  Finally, I watched as Don Juan swept Passarino's cloak over his shoulders and disappeared behind the curtained arch.  Passarino stepped into the wings, passing by me as I waited for my cue.  

Without a moment's warning, it was time for me to begin my final scene in the Phantom's opera and I closed my eyes for a moment, arduously trying to calm myself, and then I sang – I sang as I never had before.

_…No thoughts_

_Within her head,_

_But thoughts of joy!_

_No dreams_

_Within her heart,_

_But dreams of love!_

On the last, high note of the verse, I stepped onto the stage, balking for an imperceptible moment at the seemingly endless, yawning space ahead of me.  What would that stage hold for me tonight? I wondered, but then there was no more time to wonder, no more time to think…it was time to act.

Passarino skirted onto the stage behind me as I stood motionless, facing the audience and staring up at the ceiling of Don Juan's fortress: the ceiling that wasn't really there, and he leaned towards the arch, calling to his master within.

_Master?_

Suddenly, a voice vibrated from behind the curtain: the vibrant, enthralling, icy tenor of a well-trained singer…a voice that I, in the horror of a single moment, thought I recognized.  I froze, terror flashing through my eyes, as the voice, which was supposed to be that of Don Juan: Signor Ubaldo Piangi, replied to Passarino's hail.

_Passarino – go away!_

_For the trap is set and waits for its prey…_

Trying very hard not to let my utter sense of hopeless, sheer terror show through, I bemusedly reached behind myself, found the corner of the lavish table with my fingertips, and slowly lowered myself onto it.  I turned around, as Aminta was supposed to do, and found a glossy, tempting red apple at my elbow.   I bit into the fruit, ignoring the salty taste that flooded my mouth on experiencing its horrid, saccharine sweetness.  My stomach turned and I wrapped my arm about my waist, mentally forcing myself to forget all thought of vomiting right there on the stage.  

_Of all times,_ not now_!_

There was a sweeping sound behind me and then, without warning, the same, appallingly perfect voice sang to me.  I jumped visibly at hearing it; Aminta was supposed to be startled by the salutation that would inevitably come to her, but my fright was nothing but real…_overpoweringly, hideously_ _real._

_You have come here_

_In pursuit of _

_Your deepest urge,_

_In pursuit of_

_That wish,_

_Which till now_

_Has been silent,_

_Silent…_

_I have brought you,_

_That our passions _

_May fuse and merge – _

_In your mind _

_You've already_

_Succumbed to me,_

_Dropped all defenses,_

_Completely succumbed to me – _

_Now you are here with me:_

_No second thoughts,_

_You've decided,_

_Decided… _

In the midst of this twisted, passionate song, I turned around, slowly, as if I was a sleepwalker, and faced the singer.  

Don Juan had disguised himself with Passarino's cloak, which was long, full-cut, and black, with ample sleeves and a hood that completely hid the wearer's entire face.  I stared at him, struggling to control my incredible fears that threatened to transform into utter hysteria, as I realized that this person…this man who now stood in front of me…gazing into my face through the blackness of his hood…_was not Ubaldo Piangi_.

Silence.

Then, the orchestra began a tango-like, syncopated, passionate rhythm: the musicians who played the violins, oboes, and cellos plucked enticingly at their strings, capturing the audience's interest, as the last song of 'Don Juan Triumphant' began.

_Past the point_

_Of no return – _

_No backward glances:_

_The games we've played_

_Till now are at_

_An end…_

_Past all thought _

_Of 'if' or 'when' – _

_No use resisting:_

_Abandon thought,_

_And let the dream descend…_

_What raging fire_

_Shall flood the soul?_

_Which rich desire _

_Unlocks its door?_

_What sweet fantasy_

_Lies before _

_Us…?_

_Past the point_

_Of no return,_

_The final threshold – _

_What warm, _

_Unspoken secrets _

_Will we learn?_

_Beyond the point _

_Of no return… _

During the whole of his entire musical soliloquy, I had remained where I was, forgetting everything, forgetting that this was a play and nothing real, that nothing could happen, that this couldn't happen, that I was imagining things.  

None of that was true.

Without even thinking, I began to sing: my voice filled the stage and the theatre with volume, passion, and trembling emotions, making the very rafters ring.

_You have brought me_

_To that moment _

_Where words run dry,_

_To that moment_

_Where speech _

_Disappears into silence,_

_Silence…_

Leaving the table and the forgotten apple as it spun softly on the floor, dropped ungraciously from my suddenly limp hands, I paced to the edge of the stage.  My mysterious partner – the man who was hidden in his black, bat-like cloak – stood there and watched me in silence.

_I have come here,_

_Hardly knowing_

_The reason why…_

_In my mind,_

_I've already _

_Imagined your_

_Lips meeting mine: I'm_

_Defenseless and silent…_

_And now I am_

_Here with you:_

_No second thoughts,_

_I've decided,_

_Decided…_

On the last, surprisingly low note of that impassioned, forbidden verse, I turned around and faced him.  He was still there, as silent, impassive, and mysterious as ever.  Even though he wore the hood, drawn close about his face, I looked at him and knew that our eyes had met…and that he was watching me.  

There was only one way that I could know whom he was…although I already had a creeping suspicion that Signor Piangi had been taken out of his rôle as Don Juan, there was that one, all determining means.  I had to do it.  

If it would cost me my life, I had to.

He wasn't terribly far away from me; gazing at him with imploring eyes, I crossed the stage and came close to him, standing so that we touched.  Hardly knowing if what I was going to do would work or if it would spell certain doom for everyone, I reached up and brushed my hand across his shoulder, from right to left.  I heard his shuddering sigh as my fingertips ran across his hidden collarbone.  He seemed weakened and somehow surrendered to my will, as if _I was the one in power.  I continued to sing, drawing ever closer to him, staring up into his hooded face._

_Past the point_

_Of no return – _

_No going back now:_

_Our passion-play_

_Has now, at last,_

_Begun…_

_Past all thought _

_Of right or wrong – _

_One final question:_

_How long must we _

_Two wait, before_

_We're one…?_

At this point, the mood began to intensify, along with the music, and I stepped behind him as he laboredly lowered himself onto the bench at the table: his long, pale, slim hands moving to grip his knees as his cloaked head bowed and his shoulders flexed beneath the cloak.  I couldn't let the moment go: not now.  I paced behind him and leaned over him, my hands moving to caress the crown of the hood and his broad, powerful shoulders, my palms trembling when they came into contact with the warmth of his head.  I sang on, speaking to him in verse what I could not in words.

_When will the blood_

_Begin to race,_

_The sleeping bud_

_Burst into bloom?_

_When will the flames,_

_At last, consume _

_Us…?_

In a moment, I realized what I had just done. 

He moved with superhuman speed and, before I could even breathe, his hand closed around mine and he spun me into his embrace.  His arms locked about me, and I threw my head back to stare at him as he sang, reminding me of my own words.

_Past the point _

_Of no return…_

I joined him, fearlessly.

_The final threshold – _

_The bridge_

_Is crossed, so stand_

_And watch it burn…_

_We've passed the point_

_Of no return…_

The reader knows and guesses, by now, that Don Juan was played by Erik: the Phantom of the Opera.  

How he had managed to somehow brush Piangi out of the way, without a noise or movement to betray him, how he had gotten past the wall of guards and gendarmes that had surrounded the theatre, I had no idea.  But, then again, I really didn't _care.  He gazed into my face from beyond his disguise and then, and __only then, could I see into him.  The darkness of his eyes, touched by the faintest, golden glimpses of yellow, pierced through me and I was surrounded, permeated, by his warmth.  I could barely restrain myself from ending the whole production and telling him everything that had filled my heart during the last months – during __forever, really.  But I couldn't.  _

Then _he did a very odd thing.  He reached up, with one hand, and removed the hood that he wore, exposing himself for everyone around us to see.   _

_Say you'll share with_

_Me one_

_Love, one lifetime…_

_Lead me, save me_

_From my solitude…_

I could hardly bear to take my eyes off of him in the midst of this – he was telling me the truth that I had always wanted to hear – but movement from within the wings attracted my attention, and I remembered that Raoul and the gendarmes still intended to capture and bring down the Phantom.  "Erik…" I whispered, but he merely continued to sing, completely ignoring me.

_Say you want me_

_With you,_

_Here beside you…_

He then raised his voice and the climax of his song shook the very foundations of the room: the paintings, engraved architecture, and façades shaking within themselves at the volume and utter beauty of his song.  As this happened, he looked into my eyes, deep into my soul itself, and I saw in his gaze what I had to do – _what he was asking me to do_.

_Anywhere you go_

_Let me go too – _

_Christine,_

_That's all I ask of—_

He never reached the 'you' of that phrase, for I reached up and tore off his mask.  Raoul and the gendarmes fell back, horrified at the sight of the awful, distorted, mangled face of the Phantom of the Opera as he whirled, rounding on them.  Taking advantage of their terrible shock, Erik pulled me against him and swept his cape about us, covering me.  

I glimpsed gendarmes as they dashed onto the stage, rushing at his figure, and then I heard Meg's scream from upstage and André and Firmin's double cries as they found Piangi – hung behind the curtain – not dead, simply unconscious as of yet, floudering about in the air like a fish out of water.

The floor beneath our feet abruptly shot away, revealing a yawning, narrow pit of blackness beneath us, and then we were suddenly plummeting into that blackness.  I screamed and then we hit the ground beneath the stage.  Suddenly, we were running down the escape passage – away from the still-opened trapdoor and the shouts of the quickly forming mob of vengeful stagehands, actors, police, and Raoul – into the blackness that only Erik could navigate in.  

The lake shone in eerie, greenish-yellow luminescence, as if it was anticipating a terrifying set of events, and it cast a weird glow onto my skin and his already white complexion.  He looked incredibly pale, more so than usual.  His movements sharp and deliberate, he tightened his grip on my hand and led me across the dock to the boat.

"Get in." he snapped.

Frightened at his tone, I obeyed.  We made the journey to the lair then, without a word, until he suddenly burst out, "Down once more we plunge, Christine – for the last time, when our fates will be decided!  All my life, I have been hounded out by everyone, met with hatred everywhere, and now it is over: tonight, it will _end_!"

"Erik, what are you going to _do_?" I breathed, but he didn't reply.

As soon as we reached the lair, he took me to my room, his hand never releasing mine, and then he opened the door, gesturing for me to go in.  "There's a gown on your bed – put it on," he ordered.  I stepped into the room and he closed the door behind me, almost slamming it.  I stood, stunned, within the darkness, and heard his footsteps click away, down the hall, on the cold marble floor.  

I couldn't believe what had just happened.  

Only moments before, I had been wracking my mind trying to find a way of saving him, since the one opportunity that I had had to warn him of the plot had been taken away from me.  Now, I was back in the lair, with Erik, and there was a mob of angry theatre patrons, staff, and others stalking the underground catacombs in which the Phantom's lair was located.  But they would never find Erik's palace, I thought – _no one_ could.  And yet he had said that our fates would be decided tonight…  

I turned to the bed and saw the gown that lay upon it.

The doll's gown.

A _bride_ gown.

I couldn't think.  My mind was going numb, and I felt as if I was losing my grip on reality – and yet, at the same time, I felt incredibly alert and calm, almost serene.  There was a mob coming after us, Raoul would be looking for me, the opera had been yet another disaster, and I was now back in the lair with Erik.  My fingertips tingling with the rush of flurried emotion that now filled me, I crossed the room to the bed and stared at the gown for a moment.  

It was even more beautiful than it had been the last time that I had seen it, if that was even possible.  Beautiful as the dawn, magificent as any queen could desire.  

And I was to wear it.

Silently, I removed my Aminta costume and laid it out on the bed, beside the white bridal gown.  Then, I went to the wardrobes that all of my clothing had been placed in, by Erik's careful, deft hands at a time that I could not guess at.  I took out a set of petticoats – each frothing with yards and yards of lace and ribbons – and chose stockings and slippers to wear as well.  I paused for a moment, trying to still the rapid beating of my heart, trying to remind myself that this was _Erik_ whom I was dealing with: _my Angel_, and that no matter what, I couldn't be frightened.

Or could I?

I slipped on the luxuriously silky white stockings and the embroidered, bejeweled slippers, and then I stepped into the petticoats and fastened them about my waist, bemusedly noting that they very nearly hung off of me.  As soon as this had been done, I turned to face the gown once more.

_You must do this, Christine._

Somehow, the voice of my own thoughts was more like Erik's than anyone else's, even mine.  He so filled my every thought, dream, my very life itself, that I felt as if nothing else mattered.  

"Perhaps nothing else does." I whispered, looking down at the carpet beneath my feet.  

I drew the gown on over my head, feeling for a moment that I was literally swimming through its voluminous skirts, which were all made entirely of pure white tulle, which caught the candelight in the room strangely, sparkling as if diamonds had been sewn into it.  Knowing Erik and his seemingly inexhaustible amount of wealth, this could very well be the case.  

The gown itself was nothing less than a wonder, as is quite obvious by now.  Its skirts were a sea of flawless whiteness, bursting out around me in a perfect bell-shape, like the bloom of a full-blown rose.  Its bodice was detailed with tulle, embroidered with opalescent white roses, their leaves, and vines, a white ribbon lacing it up to its heavily embroidered neckline.  The neckline itself came away from my shoulders, baring them to the warm air in the room, lined with peaked white lace, and the waist of the gown came to a low V.  The back of the gown had an elaborate satin train that swept out far behind me, making a soft shh-ing noise whenever I moved about.  

When I had laced up the back of the gown, I went to the mirror…and was stunned by my own reflection.  Was this me?  This shy, hesitant, wide-eyed, but statuesque and thoughtful young woman, this pale and wondering girl?  I could hardly recognize myself.

Just then, there was a knock at the door: three soft taps.

"Erik." 

My lips formed the name, but no sound came forth.  Gathering my skirts into my hands, I ran across the room and carefully opened the door.  

Erik stood outside, in all his glory: garbed in all-out, dark magnificence.  His Don Juan cloak and scarf had been replaced by his opera wear.  He now wore a full-cut, romantic-style white shirt, complete with a flowing, lacy cravat, a huge diamond stud to fasten it, and draping cuffs that were edged with lace, a black silk jacket and pants, a black velvet waistcoat which was also studded with diamond buttons, and, of course, a billowing black velvet cloak with intricate, swirling designs of jet about the collar.  His mask was white…with a red teardrop etching down from its eye.  

I was stunned by how incredible he looked.  He was absolutely beautiful.  I would always have to be careful, I resolved for the hundred thousandth time, when I looked at him.  The mere sight of this compelling, elegant, swoon-worthy man was enough to send any girl or woman into a dead faint at his mere gorgeousness.  He was more amazing, more fascinating and enthralling, than any man that I had ever before seen.

And yet he didn't even know that himself.

A long, silent moment passed us by, and then he spoke.

"Beauty is dressed as a bride…is she ready to greet her Beast?" 

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

Author's note:  Oh dear, Christine, you had best watch yourself – now he's _really_ mad.  Next chapter!


	9. Make Your Choice

A/N:  I think FFD (and my computer) are back to behaving once more, so I am now reloading this chapter, so it will be without it former defects in the print.  Thank you, once again, to all those who have reviewed and given me their comments and concerns.  ^_*

**Riene**:  Beauty and the Beast?  Well, the similarities were unintended, I assure you, as were the random periods in the middles of the sentences.  My computer (or FFD) has been acting weird recently, and it turned all of my …'s into just .'s.  My apologies.  Also, I know quite a few people don't appreciate the teardrop thing on the masks, but I thought it was interesting (and I've got some rather artistically-inclined habits).  As for his wardrobe, blame it on the Charles Dance version.   So, now that's I've made my excuses…  ^_*  Thank you for your remarks on this.  PS Write a phan phic!  I would read it!!!

**Rowin**:  'Ma petite' – 'mon petite'.  All right, my excuse here is not wanting to mess up on that.  Originally, I had it as 'ma', but then I changed it just in case I was wrong.  Your comment regarding this is not picky at all; I asked for people to correct me when I had made an error.  So thank you.

Disclaimer:  Don't own Phantom.  'Nuff said.

Chapter Twenty – 

Make Your Choice 

Erik narrates…

I went to my room and changed out of my costume, replacing it with the finest formal opera garb that I possessed.  Tonight, as I had told Christine, it would be the end.  

The end of it all.

Tonight had seen the reappearance of the Phantom of the Opera, the ruination of a plot on my life, and the abduction of Christine Daae.  Of course, the 'attempted' murder of Ubaldo Piangi had caused the formation of a vengeful mob that was now running the expanse of the labyrinth, seeking to find the Phantom and wreak vengeance upon him.  Killing Piangi had not been my intention.  If it _had_, I could have ended his life within a split second.  No, that time, the use of the Punjab lasso had merely been to serve as a way to keep him from entering the stage – to allow me to take his place.  

But Nadir would see it differently.  There was no doubt in my mind that he had come to the premier of 'Don Juan' that night, and that he now believed me to be a madman, a maniacal murderer who had once more abducted his beautiful victim with nothing but blood on his mind.

I won't lie – I _did_ have blood on my mind.

But not Christine's.

Nadir would be arrive any time now, leading Raoul who would, of course, attempt to rescue Christine from my clutches.  

"Well," I said, as I took up my hat in one hand and smiled darkly, morbidly to myself, "He's about to learn just how powerful the Phantom of the Opera is."

I left my room and went upstairs, to the lair's second floor, to Christine's rooms.  After I had knocked softly on the door, I heard the gentle rustle of tulle skirts and the soft tap of delicate slippers upon the floor within the room, and then the door opened, revealing Christine as she stood just inside of it, looking up at me with her beautiful, sparkling gemstones of eyes.  She wore the bride's gown.

_She was so beautiful._

Her pale, silky skin seemed to glow like moonlight, set off by the gown's pure whiteness, and the curls of her glorious, thick, dark hair framed her perfect face.  Her eyes, however, were wide and dark.  She looked fearful and even a bit angry.

"Beauty is dressed as a bride…is she ready to greet her Beast?" I asked, mockingly naming the symbolism of our relationship.  She held her hands out to me, pleadingly.  "Erik, please," she said, and tears were in her voice, "What are you doing?  What dark design do you have for tonight?  Isn't it enough that we are here – _must_ you carry through with whatever revenge you desire to have now?"

"_Yes_." I growled.  I crooked my arm, offering it to her, and she took it after a moment's pause, intertwining her arm with mine.  I closed the door to her room behind us and then escorted her into the organ room, leaving her at its center as I crossed the room to the organ, where the manuscript for 'All I Ask Of You', struck from the'Don Juan'libretto, lay scattered about.

"It's too late to go back now, Christine." I said then, rearranging the papers.  I looked up at her as I continued. "This time, the Vicomte will learn that he cannot cross me – he cannot plot against me, and he _cannot win_.  I am all-powerful, in this place: _my_ domain, and tonight will see one person's defeat – _his_."

"Why must you defeat him?" 

She shook her head at me, her eyes sparkling with tears.  I felt a second's remorse, but would not let her see.

"_Because_, Christine." I said.  

I turned and went to the ornate black throne that stood nearby, across from the organ, and picked up, in both of my hands, the trailing, ethereal swath of white tulle and lace that had been placed there.  Moving towards her slowly, making full eye contact with her, I continued. 

"Because, for all of my life, I have lived with the knowledge that the world hates me for my face.  Because people like the Vicomte de Chagny are the people who have made me afraid to live.  Tonight, I will destroy him, and the world will learn that it must either subject itself to letting me live, as a person and a man, or prepare itself for the consequences thereof."

I was standing directly in front of her now, and I placed the object in my hands – the veil that accompanied the bride's gown that she wore – on her head.  Its shimmering whiteness cascaded down her hair, pooling with the skirts of the gown, and I gazed at her, unable to take my eyes away from her.  This was what I wanted, all I ever desired.

"Erik…"

The word came out as a sob.  

I couldn't stand it.  My revenge was something that I had to do…but it was hurting Christine.  She didn't understand…but I couldn't stop now.  This had to be done.  It was for _her_, in the end of all things!  If I took my revenge on Raoul and whoever else followed him, _she_ would no longer be rejected as nothing by the world.  

We would both be free of the reality that we were so alien to.

"Christine." I said, and went to her.  

Hesitantly, scarcely even daring to touch her, I cupped my hand under her perfect chin and raised her face so that she had to look into my eyes.  I let my gaze rove across her face, as I tried to comprehend the fleeting emotions that flickered upon it, like teasing midnight shadows.  "Christine…" I breathed, softly. "Can't you _see_…?  I am doing this _for_ _you_."

"You would kill…for _me_?" she asked, looking up at me through her tears.  

Then she reached up and removed my mask, so that it no longer stood behind us.  I had already let her do this once tonight – what was one more time, and what did wearing it in her presence even mean anymore?  She didn't care, even if I, _and_ the world, did.  I looked at her, and the sight of her sadness drove a dagger through my heart.  I turned my gaze away, closing my eyes.  We were facing each other now as we had the other times before, and I wore no mask.  I was truly bared to her.

"Erik, there is no need for this.  Forget them…let it _go_."

"I _can't_." I whispered.  

Suddenly, I heard the smallest of sounds from behind us and I whirled around: stepping back, away from Christine, and gestured towards the portcullis, smiling a smile that I knew was cruel.  

"_Wait_." I hissed. "I think, my dear, that we have a _guest_!" 

And then I took another step backwards, allowing her to see that Nadir Khan and Raoul had both just emerged, dripping wet, from the lake outside of the portcullis.  They, having no boat, had swum here, and now stood beyond us, staring into the room.  

"Sir, this is _indeed_ an unparalleled pleasure!" I said, approaching the portcullis, standing before it and looking at Raoul straight in the eye, so that he saw my face at a close range.  He wouldn't even look at me.  "I had rather hoped that you would come…and now, my wish comes to pass!  You have _truly_ made my night!"

Raoul threw himself against the black iron gate, and railed at me, pleading, "Free her!  Do what you like – only free her!  Have you no pity?"

I turned to Christine, a smirk twisting my mangled lips, and said, dryly and dispassionately, "Your lover makes a passionate plea!" 

Christine shook her head at Raoul, and suddenly I felt her warmth at my side, felt her fingers brushing at my hand as if she wished to hold it, and I nearly fainted with shock that she could stand to be so close to me.  "Please, Raoul, it's useless—" she began, but the Vicomte cut her off, exclaiming melodramatically at me, "I _love_ her!  Does that mean nothing? _I love her_!  Show some compassion—" 

Then it was my turn to cut him off.

_Compassion?  Ha!  I know no such thing!_

I stepped forward, motioning Christine to stay back, behind me, and snarled furiously at him, "The _world_ showed no compassion to _me_!" 

But Raoul ignored me, putting his hands, instead, through the portcullis, reaching them out towards Christine as he said, desperately, "Christine…my love, Christine…" Then he looked at me, ceasing to be a whining little sap of a boy for one moment and letting the calm, rational man whom he was supposed to be show through.  

"Let me see her…" he said, firmly.

I swept a bow to him, growling, "Please, be my guests, messieurs…" 

Leaving Christine behind me, making a motion for her to remain where she was, I went to the side of the room and pulled down on one of the branches of the candelabra that was nearest to the portcullis, which instantly began to rise as soon as I had done so.  I took my place in front of Christine again, folding my arms across my chest as the dripping portcullis came up and a very wary Raoul and Nadir Khan entered the room, both watching me as if I was a tiger who had a mind to spring.

_Very good, gentlemen… _I thought, darkly, before I addressed them both in a carefully controlled, soft voice that spoke volumes of my peaceful intent.

_"_Messieurs, I bid you welcome!  Did you think that I would harm her?  Why should I make _her_ pay for the sins _which are_ _yours_?"

The last three words that I said came out as a snarl, and I moved so quickly that Nadir was still fumbling with the catch on his pistol when I caught Raoul deftly around the neck with the Punjab lasso.  I had never actually killed anyone in the Opéra with that weapon, but now I was perfectly prepared to do just that.  I threw the end of the rope up into the air, and the hook on the end of it caught onto one of the lower rafter beams in the ceiling, nearly taking the Vicomte off of his feet.  His hands went up to his neck, scrabbling at the rope, but it would do no good.  He was trapped, and I was his captor.

I whirled to face Nadir then, bringing out my own loaded and cocked pistol and aiming it directly between his dark eyes.  

"Make a single move, Daroga," I told him, coldly, "And _you're_ next."  

I gestured at him to drop his weapon.  He remained where he was for a moment, frozen with shock, I suppose, and then he moved, slowly, and placed his pistol on the floor, his eyes never leaving me.  I moved my hand, indicating with my own pistol that he should take a seat near the portcullis's edge.  Then I placed his weapon out of reach and paced in front of Raoul and smiled malignantly, coldly, at him.

"So now you see it, Monsieur le Vicomte – your plans were always destined to fail, no matter how hard you tried to keep them from me.  And was it all because of your own blundering idiocy?  Oh, most assuredly _yes_.  And now, _nothing_ in this world stands to save you – except for, perhaps,_ Christine_!"

I rounded on her then, eyes blazing, pistol still aimed at both Raoul and Nadir, and gave her my ultimatum. 

"Start a new life with me!" I told her. "Buy _his_ freedom with _your_ love!  Refuse me, and you will send this boy to his death!  This is your choice – _this_ is the point of no return!" 

She gazed at me for a long moment then, and I saw that something had changed in her eyes.  They became hard and cold, and I shuddered inwardly, as if the look that she now wore had just given me a physical blow.  My hand trembled a bit.

"No, Erik." she said, her voice low and hard and icy.

There it was.  If I killed Raoul, if I killed these men, she would refuse me.  So be it.  She could hate me forever, she could refuse and fight back all that she wanted to, but _she would be mine_.  She could not escape me now – no one could.  I was in control, and none of them would leave this place alive before I had what I now so desperately wanted.  

Let her hate me, but _she would be mine_! 

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Christine narrates…

As soon as Erik had given me my choice, I knew that he had finally gone too far.  I didn't love Raoul, and I would never marry him, but if Erik planned to kill both of these men, no matter who they were, because of his blind desire to have me – _me_, of all people – I could never love him nor marry him either.  This was not the Angel that I had known, this man standing before me, threatening to kill two men in order to win my heart and hand.  This was not the Angel, this wasn't Erik.

A horrific cacophony started up then.  Raoul pleaded desperately to me, "Christine, forgive me, please forgive me – I did it all for you, and all for _nothing_…" 

But I was looking at Erik, gazing at him but speaking to myself and no one else, "Farewell, my fallen idol and false friend!  One by one I've watched illusions shattered…" 

Erik heard my words and said, his voice breaking in and drowning everything else out, "You're past all hope of cries for help: there's no point in fighting, _ma petite_, for either way you choose, you _cannot_ win!  So now, tell me – will you end your days with me, or will you send him to his grave?" 

"Why make her lie to you, to save me?" Raoul asked him.

_Angel of Music…_

"You're past the point of no return, little one…"

"For pity's sake, Christine, say no!"

_Why this torment? _

"The final threshold…" 

"Don't throw your life away for my sake!"

_When will you see the truth…? _

"His life is now the prize which you must earn!"

"I fought so hard to free you!" 

_Angel of Music…_

"There's no way out – you cannot go back now!"

I looked at Erik again, or rather, at his feet, withdrawing inwards to myself.  I would not let him make himself into a murderer by killing Raoul and this other man.  How long had I strived to find a way to save him – and how many precious seconds had it taken for him to put me in this position, to come up with this impossible choice?  I wouldn't let him do this to himself.  How could I tell him now that he didn't need to threaten to kill Raoul in order to gain the answer that he wished?

How could I tell him that…

Suddenly, Erik was standing right in front of me, his hand moving to hold my arm in a cold, viselike grip.  

"You try my patience – _make your choice_!" he snarled.  

And in the moment that followed those words, I looked up into his mismatched, crystalline eyes and saw how icy and hard they were.  As I looked beyond that outward appearance, however, I glimpsed the emotions inside: fear, doubt, pain, and incredible loneliness.

My heart began to shatter.

There was only one thing I could do.  

_I have shown you that your face could not frighten me, or make me repulse you…I have obeyed you and listened to your teachings…I have been through this world and back, having stayed at your side and kept you in my heart, and now I know…_

I was quiet for a few seconds longer, and then I moved slowly, with resolution, towards him, looking into his poor, distorted face.  

"Erik…" I said, whispering so that only he could hear, but the emotion in my voice grew as I continued. "Please…listen to me.  Listen to me now, if you ever do.  My wonderful Erik…no matter _what_ the world says, and no matter what _you_ tell yourself, you are _nothing_ but a perfect, beautiful angel.  You always _were_!"

He had backed away from me, staring at me with dark, wary eyes, as if he thought that I would somehow give him even greater pain than he had already known.  I continued to walk towards him, reaching out a hand to him as he asked, growling the words, "How can you say that?  Don't you see _any_ of this?"

"I see it." I replied, gently. "But you won't kill them…I know your heart.  I've seen it, and I trust in it.  My poor Erik, my dark Angel…what kind of life have you known?  I would give _anything_ to make you see all that you really are…but…all I can give you now…is this."

Now calmly facing him, I reached out, closing my fingers around his black satin jacket lapels, and pulled him close to me.  Then, after I had gazed into his disbelieving eyes for exactly one split second, I put my hands on both sides of his face – my palms coming into contact with the rough, disfigured skin of his right cheek – and drew his head down to my level, finding his lips with mine.

And then I kissed him.

He writhed in my arms, seeming almost as if he was convulsing, but I held on to him.  My first kiss that I gave to him was short and simple.  I pulled back and flung my arms about him, crushing us against one another, and held him.  I saw, from the meager view that my only barely opened eyes gave to me, that his arms were frozen out from his sides, hovering about me.  He didn't know how to react to a kiss, I realized, and pity flooded my heart.  Then pity changed into something more – something much deeper.

Passion.

Everything within me surging with this new emotion, I placed my hands on his arms, gripping them tightly and ardently, and kissed him on the lips again.  

Suddenly, as if something had just clicked within his head, the bolts falling into place and beginning to work, he closed his arms about me, locking me in their warm, powerful strength.  He was kissing me back then: passionately, deeply, almost frenzied, his lips caressing mine, melding around them powerfully, sweetly, possessively.  Our kiss became longer, fuller, going on for a seeming lifetime.  I reached up and twined my hands about his neck, running them through his silky, thick, golden-brown hair, feeling as if fireworks were going off inside of my head.  

Still, our embrace went on.

Finally, abruptly, we broke away from one another and pulled back, but only enough to leave about an inch between each other's faces.  He was staring, blankly, into the space between us, as if he didn't even see me.  He was stiff and trembling, leaning into me.  I felt breathless and lightheaded myself.  Such were the effects of our kiss.  I watched him close his eyes, and then his head dropped so that our foreheads were resting against one another.  

The lair was completely silent for a long, long moment.

Then, suddenly, he stepped away from me, a numb, guilt-ridden expression on his face.  I gazed at him, thousands of questions springing to my lips, and watched as he raised his eyes to mine once again.  I saw something knowing and resigned and calm in his gaze then, and it made my own heart twist with a sickening feeling.  He crossed the room to Raoul, whose face was becoming quite ashen with his lack of air.

"Erik—" I began, starting towards him.

He flung out a hand, telling me wordlessly to be still and remain where I was.  Then, he took a lighted candle from one of the candelabras.   The suspended rope fell harmlessly – he had burned the thread by which the noose was held.  

Raoul dropped to the floor, holding his throat, choking and coughing.  Out of mere regard for his well being, I went to him and helped him to his feet.  

Erik had returned to stand beside his throne, meanwhile, and as we looked at him, he addressed Raoul.  I didn't know what he was looking at so intently until I heard a distant roaring sound, which separated from a dim buzz into separate voices and finally words.

"Track down the murderer – find him!" "Hunt out the animal!" "He's preyed on us too long!  The Phantom of the Opera is here!  Find him!" "Revenge for Piangi!  Revenge for Buquet!  The creature must never go free!"

The mob.

Oh no.  They were coming for Erik.

Coming suddenly to life, he whirled around to face us, his face and eyes dark and tainted with fear and worry.  He gestured to Raoul, saying abstractedly, "Take her – forget me, forget all of this – leave me alone – forget all you've seen!"

He stiffly waved us off, towards a doorway that Nadir Khan, who had stood as soon as we had heard the mob coming, opened.  Erik came behind us, staring after us with his haunted, grief-filled eyes.  I stopped dead in my tracks, paralyzed with horror as soon as I had realized what he wanted us to do…what he was asking me to do. 

"Go now – don't let them find you!" he told us. "Take the boat – leave me here – go now, don't wait!" 

He stood back, arms dropping limply, helplessly, to his sides, saying softly, "Just take her and go – before it's too late…  Go…" 

The volume and intensity of his beautiful voice rose then from a small murmur to a wild, unrestrained shriek, and he almost literally chased us out of the lair, standing in the doorway that led out of it, screaming after us—

"_Go now_ – _GO NOW AND LEAVE ME_!"

Those last two words echoed in the corridor behind us as we fled down it, Raoul pulling me after him by the hand.  I looked back, my entire being twisting with a sick, deadening feeling, for I knew that Erik, the Phantom of the Opera and my Angel, would not be coming with us.  He would stay, and the mob would find him.  

The last thing that I saw of him was his slow progress back to the veil that had fallen from my head during our passionate, world-ending kiss…and then him picking it up and gathering it gently into his slender, long, pale musician's hands.

_Erik.  _

Nadir Khan reached the boat first and was untying it from the dock before Raoul and I had even come out of the passageway.  "Come, hurry!" he said, urgently, obviously wanting to make an escape.

"Christine, hurry – come away now!" Raoul said to me, breathlessly, trying to pull me to the boat as I halted dead in my tracks.  He stopped then as well, staring at me incredulously, as if he thought that I had lost my mind.  "Christine?"   __

_Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime…let me lead you from your solitude…  Share each day with me, each night – each morning…_

I looked back towards the lair.

Far from us, I heard the sounds of the approaching mob.  They were getting closer.  But then I heard another sound: this one, from down the dark corridor that led to the Phantom's lair.  It was the sound of someone sobbing.  

Then, and only then, did I know – _truly know_.

I turned to Raoul, smiling softly, and went to him.  I put my arms around him and kissed him gently on the cheek, then pulled back and gazed at him.

"Thank you."

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Erik resumes the narrative…

She was gone.

My angel – the woman who had saved me from becoming a monster, from my hate, and from myself – was gone.   I had given her up, after she had shown me, for the first time in my life, what _true love_ was.  No other woman had ever loved me as she had, in those few, precious moments of the kiss that we had shared.  She had shown me, for the first time in my life, that I had the capability to love.

Truly love.

But now she was gone.

I watched as she, the Vicomte, and Nadir ran to the boat.  I couldn't look on then.  I didn't want to see her go – to see her leave me forever.  The mob was getting closer now; I could hear them as they ran nearer and nearer to the lair.  It wouldn't be long before it was all over.  Before it was truly the end.

Feeling curiously calm and resigned to my imminent death, but placed in eternal turmoil because of the loss of the only woman whom I had ever loved, I turned away from the door and looked back into the still, quiet organ room.  The flames on the candles in the candelabras flickered and burned steadily, warmly, and the inky shadows around me were thick and solemn.  Everything was as it had been before.

She had left her veil on the floor.

I went to pick it up, gathering it into my trembling hands and then folding it to my chest, holding it within my arms as if it was her.  It still had her scent on it – her sweet, rosy, beautiful scent.  I inhaled it with every breath that I took.

_Christine, I loved you…_

I had known that I loved her before, that I wanted her with me as my own, that I wanted to have her love me as well…but I hadn't known the true love that I had for her.  

Not until now, when it was too late, when I couldn't tell her.  

That thought made me break down – that thought, and the noise of the boat as it was poled swiftly away through the black waters of the lake beneath the opera house.  They were leaving now, passing through the mist and the darkness, drawing ever nearer to the surface and the light.

While I would remain here, in the underworld.

Alone.

I buried my bare face in the veil, letting my tears finally come.  Christine hadn't known, but I had cried as she had kissed me.  Now I was making no secret of it.  My sobs were deep and heart-broken, for that was what I was.  I had proved that I was no monster, but a _man_, in releasing them all, in refusing to take my revenge.  

But it had cost me Christine.

"Christine…" I wept. "_Christine_!"

Through my tears then, I began to sing her song – 'All I Ask Of You'.  I had never told her that it was her song, and in my hopelessness following the months that we had spent apart after 'Il Muto', I had changed the plot of 'Don Juan Triumphant', so that its ending no longer featured that song…or a happy ending.  But it was her song.  It was only hers.

_Say you'll share with me one love,   
One lifetime…   
Say the word and I will follow you…   
Share each day with me,   
Each night, each morning…_

I heard the gentle rustle of tulle skirts and the soft tap of delicate slippers upon the floor, drawing near to me.  _It's a wraith of your own mind, it's because you want her back now, just ignore it and it will go away, it's just a wraith…_

And then…

_No more talk of darkness –    
Forget these wide-eyed fears…   
I'm here:   
Nothing can harm you,   
My words will warm and calm you…   
Let me be your freedom,   
Let daylight dry your tears…   
I'm here:   
With you, beside you,   
To guard you and to guide you…_

That perfect voice sang to me.  I felt as if my mind was exploding.  Barely daring to believe it, I remained paralyzed where I was for a moment, and then I whirled around with dizzying speed, wanting to catch this wraith of my imagination before she left me again.  

But no.  

She was there, standing in the doorway of the corridor that led to the dock: her white bride's gown sprayed out around her like a misty cloud, her hair lying long and full and dark upon her pure, white skin, her eyes shining like the sun, sweet red lips curved in the gentlest of smiles, arms at her sides. 

"I couldn't ever leave you," she said.

_Oh wonders!_

Choking on a sob of pure, incredulous joy, I went forward and met her across the room in two strides.  Christine flung herself into my arms and I stumbled back, taking the both of us with me, benumbed with the shock of her return and almost too incredulous to believe that what I was seeing was reality.  I held her for a speechless moment, then asked, softly, "Is this true?  Can you be real?  Are you really here…?"

"Of course I'm here!  And I'll never leave!" she swore to me, and suddenly I knew that I wasn't dreaming or hallucinating – she was _real_.  She was here.  She had come back.  Christine had come back.  _She was here_.

"You…came back!" was all I could say through my tears of joy.

She was crying too, and laughing all at the same time, placing her tiny hands on either side of my face, smiling brilliantly up at me, her eyes alight.

"I love you, Erik – do you hear me?  _I love you_!  I always have, and I always will!  Oh, my precious Angel!"

I almost fainted.  Not only had she just given me the first real kiss of my life – she also loved me!

"Christine…" I breathed, overcome with happiness. "I love you too."

She pulled me close to her, so that I could see each fine detail of her face: each curve and contour, each tinge of delicate colour, each beautiful feature.  Every dream that I had ever dreamed had just come true.  She was here, with me, and she loved me.  I swept her up in my arms, cherishing the feeling of her slender, perfect form against me, and closed my eyes, savoring the moment.  If only this could go on forever.

_I suppose that now it can._

"Christine…" I said to her, and then I began to sing.  Outside of the lair, beyond the lake, I caught a glimpse of many flaming torches and heard the rush of the crazed mob…but then it came to a halt, a complete standstill, as the song began.

_Say you love me every waking moment –    
Turn my head with talk of summertime…   
Say you need me with you, now and always…   
Promise me that all you say is true –   
Christine, that's all I ask of you!_

She smiled into my eyes and sang to me then.

_Let me be your shelter,   
Let me be your light –   
You're safe:   
No one will find you,   
Your fears are far behind you!_

When she left off, I began again.

_All I want is freedom –    
A world with no more night!   
And you,   
Always beside me,   
To hold me and to hide me!_

She sang once more, alone.

_Then say you'll share with me one love,   
One lifetime…   
Let me lead you from your solitude…   
Say you want me_

_With you, here, beside you…   
Anywhere you go, let me go too…   
That's all I ask of you…_

And then, raising our voices in a harmony so perfect, so pure, that it rivaled the glory of the morning sun, we finished the song together, wrapped up in one another's arms, gazing into each other's eyes, sharing a happiness that was most beautiful because it was founded on _true love_.

_Say you'll share with me one love,   
One lifetime –   
Say the word and I will follow you…   
Share each day with me,   
Each night, each morning…   
  
_

_Say you love me…   
  
_

_You know I do…_

_ Love me, that's all I ask of you!   
  
_

_Anywhere you go, let me go too…_

_Love me, that's all I ask of you…_

I looked down at her, as she rested her head against my chest, and gently kissed the top of her head before tilting her chin up so that I could see her face.

"Marry me?" I whispered into her hair.

She turned her head around to look up at me, and in her eyes, I saw the only answer that I would ever need to that question.

To anything.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

A/N:  Now to the epilogue, at last…


	10. Epilogue

A/N:  Well, I'm back with the very last update to this story ever—

Erik: *sitting in the background at the organ*  Hopefully.

Kates:  *shoots him the look*  Don't make me get out the sparkle paint again – I swear on everything that is holy, I _will_ leave each one of your masks with flowers all over them again if I get one more comment from you, monsieur.

Erik:  You wouldn't dare.

Kates:  If all of your Punjab lassoes happened to have been conveniently misplaced, yes I _would_…

Erik:  *growls*

Anyways, aside from that.  Thanks to all of you who have reviewed so nicely for me – you are truly wonderful, and I am glad that you've been able to both tolerate and enjoy my warped-rendition of Phantom.

Disclaimer:  I don't own Phantom.  *grins mischievously*  I do, however, own the idea for the end of this…

_– _Epilogue –

We left the lair and the Paris opera house forever that night, pausing only to close the doors that led from the organ room into the lair itself, so that the rooms that had become a home, for so short a time, to both Christine and me, would remain untouched.  Then we traveled through the underground passageways, coming out of them and the darkness at the Rue Scribe.  Christine took us back to her flat and we spent the night there – I slept on the floor, and her landlady did not take notice of our arrival, fortunately.  

The next night, as soon as the sun had set, we made our way to the flat that Mme. Giry shared with her young daughter and surprised them at dinner.  Meg, needless to say, was in great shock at seeing the legendary Phantom of the Opera, of whom she had told so many stories over the years, in her home, and even more surprised to see her best friend with him.  

All right, perhaps saying that she was merely shocked by this isn't quite the full truth – she quite promptly fainted, and after an interim in events of about fifteen minutes, which we spent attempting to revive her, she seemed much more disposed to hearing the story.  It was a large surprise, it must be understood, but she eventually bore it very well.  

My reason in going with Christine to Mme. Giry was to inform her, firstly, that I was alive, as was Christine, and secondly – and more importantly – that we two needed the ballet mistress and her daughter to help us organize our wedding.  It was possible for us to be married at only a moment's notice, but I would have nothing but the finest of marriage ceremonies for my bride, even if it were to be rather small.  

This, I must say, worked out beautifully.  

Mme. Giry and Meg moved Christine's most cherished possessions out of her flat two days after the whole affair at the opera house, all of us taking much care to avoid having their actions being marked by anyone who knew of the episode and our involvement with it.  I, meanwhile, found an ad in one of the many Parisian newspapers that stated a need for a buyer of a rather ancient but very picturesque and romantic castle out in the countryside of France.  

While Christine, Mme. Giry, and Meg prepared for the wedding, I made the purchase of this place and set about making it into a proper home.  Then, one afternoon, before even a week had gone by, we all went out to a charming little church that was nearby our new home-to-be.

And there, Christine and I were married.

Surrounded by our small circle of true friends – Mme. Giry, Meg, and Nadir, whom I had made amends with – we took our vows and were proclaimed husband and wife.  Then, we made our way out of that church and into the glorious sunlight beyond, laughing and talking as if nothing had ever been wrong in our lives before.  I gazed at Christine with utter, blissful happiness in my eyes, reflected on my face in my smile, as she proudly displayed the engagement and wedding rings that I had given her to Mme. Giry and Meg, her respective maids-of-honour.  Nadir came to stand by my side, watching them as well, and then he turned to me.  

"Look at her, Nadir." I said, unable to take my eyes off of my bride. "Isn't she beautiful?"

He smiled in his grand, stately way, and replied, "Yes, she is beautiful – you both are beautiful.  Your love is beautiful." We paused for a moment, and then he said, with happy, content finality in his tone, "You seem to have found your happy ending, my friend."

I shook my head, finally turning to him as I grinned uncontrollably.

"No," I told him, "No, Nadir – there are no happy endings."

I stepped away and took Christine in my arms, drawing her away from the others with me, and said, "There are only happy _beginnings_."

Then I gathered both of her hands in mine and stood back, gazing into her lovely face – into her eyes, into the gaze that had seen me as beautiful, as something worthy, something to be loved, into the face of the person who had changed my life.

"Christine, I love you." I whispered.

She smiled at me, her fingers caressing mine lovingly.

"I love you, Erik."

Then I stood away and whirled her around in circles, as our friends – who were more to the both of us than any family – looked on and the sun shone down on us, and time stood still for this one, perfect moment.

_And that moment never ended…_

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

– Finis –

And now, just for phun – how about a cast list?  (The actors, actresses, and just general people chosen as Kates imagines them…so don't Punjab me if you don't agree…)

Erik Dessler, the Phantom of the Opera – Ewan McGregor

Christine Daae – Jennifer Connolly

Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny – need help…

Mme. Antoinette Giry – Angelica Huston

Meg Giry – really not sure…

Richard Firmin – Kelsey Grammar

Gilles André – really need help…

Carlotta Guidicelli – Bette Midler

Ubaldo Piangi – need help again…

Joseph Buquet – same here…

Nadir Khan – and here.

So, have you any suggestions?  Please tell me!  Oh, and twenty long-stem red roses for everyone who has reviewed!  @{------

PS  To **Shelli**:  YES!  I was hoping somebody would think that idea was a good one.  Well, thank you for mentioning it…and I think we all need some "chocolate" at the end of Phantom, especially if we've only seen it once.  ^_*  I know what you mean there…


End file.
